[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY'S RESPONSE TO THE
BATON ROUGE FLOOD DISASTER: PART II
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 5, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-31
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://oversight.house.gov
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Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Jason Chaffetz, Utah, Chairman
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland,
Darrell E. Issa, California Ranking Minority Member
Jim Jordan, Ohio Carolyn B. Maloney, New York
Mark Sanford, South Carolina Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Justin Amash, Michigan Columbia
Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri
Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Jim Cooper, Tennessee
Blake Farenthold, Texas Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
Thomas Massie, Kentucky Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark Meadows, North Carolina Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
Ron DeSantis, Florida Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands
Dennis A. Ross, Florida Val Butler Demings, Florida
Mark Walker, North Carolina Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Rod Blum, Iowa Jamie Raskin, Maryland
Jody B. Hice, Georgia Peter Welch, Vermont
Steve Russell, Oklahoma Matthew Cartwright, Pennsylvania
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Mark DeSaulnier, California
Will Hurd, Texas John Sarbanes, Maryland
Gary J. Palmer, Alabama
James Comer, Kentucky
Paul Mitchell, Michigan
Jonathan Skladany, Staff Director
William McKenna, General Counsel
Michael Howell, Counsel
Sharon Casey, Deputy Chief Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on April 5, 2017.................................... 1
WITNESSES
The Hon. John Bel Edwards, Governor of Louisiana
Oral Statement............................................... 7
Written Statement............................................ 10
Mr. Robert J. Fenton, Jr., Acting Administrator, Federal
Emergency Management Agency
Oral Statement............................................... 47
Written Statement............................................ 49
Rear Admiral David Boone, USN, Retired
Oral Statement............................................... 57
Written Statement............................................ 59
Mr. Mark Harrell, Emergency Coordinator, Livingston Parish,
Louisiana
Oral Statement............................................... 63
Written Statement............................................ 65
APPENDIX
Letter of January 18, 2017, from FEMA to CB&I Federal Services,
submitted by Mr. Chaffetz...................................... 116
February 23, 2017, The Advocate ``Blind Baton Rouge Man Baked to
Death in a FEMA Trailer,'' submitted by Mr. Chaffetz........... 118
Letter of February 14, 2017, from the Department of Housing and
Urban Development to the State of Louisiana, submitted by Mr.
Cummings....................................................... 121
The Hon. Junior Shelton, Mayor of Central, Louisiana, Statement
for the Record................................................. 123
OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY'S RESPONSE TO THE
BATON ROUGE FLOOD DISASTER: PART II
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Wednesday, April 5, 2017
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:31 a.m., in Room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Jordan, Amash, Meadows,
DeSantis, Ross, Walker, Blum, Hice, Grothman, Hurd, Palmer,
Mitchell, Cummings, Maloney, Lynch, Plaskett, Demings,
Krishnamoorthi, Welch, Cartwright, and DeSaulnier.
Also Present: Representatives Graves, Johnson, and
Richmond.
Chairman Chaffetz. The Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform will come to order. Without objection, the
chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time.
The chair notes the presence of our colleagues from
Louisiana and who are also joining us here, and we appreciate
the interest in this topic.
I'd like to ask unanimous consent that Garret Graves, Mike
Johnson, and Cedric Richmond be allowed to fully participate in
today's hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
We had one of the worst natural disasters in this country
happen again in Louisiana. On August 11, 2016, a no-name storm
dropped some 7.1 trillion gallons of rain on the Baton Rouge
and Livingston Parish area. Some areas received up to 31 inches
of rainfall in just 2 days. That is so unbelievable. It's hard
to imagine how much rain was falling in such a short amount of
time. The resulting flood was one of the worst disasters in our
history, causing over $8 billion of damage and claiming 13
lives.
The first responders, friends, and neighbors, including
Representative Garret Graves, who took his own paddleboard out
and coordinated to get people help, rescued more than 15,000
people from the floodwaters.
And, again, we appreciate our representatives from
Louisiana being here and participating in this hearing.
There were some 150,000 local residents who applied for
assistance. Seven months later, estimates indicate that more
than 45,000 flood victims remain displaced and don't yet live
at a home. Another 600 families are still living in a hotel.
You know, this is one of the things that my colleague here
to my right, Elijah Cummings, talks a lot about. We keep saying
we're ready, we keep appropriating the money, and they're flat
out not ready to deal with it.
Congress responded to this by appropriating $1.6 billion to
be administered by the State of Louisiana, on top of billions
available through other programs. The committee sponsored the
first congressional delegation to the affected areas in the
weeks after the floods and held a hearing on September 9 of
2016.
The committee then returned to the area in February.
Additionally, we have reviewed more than 80,000 pages of
documents from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or
FEMA, and through our field work and document review, we
discovered significant failures at FEMA.
Among the most egregious examples is FEMA's failure to
deploy in a timely manner. These MHUs, these--again, these
mobile housing units, are a housing option of last resort for
flood victims. At the time of the September hearing, FEMA had
placed only one person in an MHU, despite having 70 MHUs
locally and sitting on a lot.
I want to show you this graph here. Now, remember, this
disaster happened in August. This is the deployment of the
mobile housing units. Twenty-two are out there in September.
October, 593, but you really don't ramp up until February.
February. This thing happened in August.
You can take that slide down.
These are people who are in desperate need of housing and
simply had to wait too long. In fact, we still have people that
are waiting. There are still people waiting in line. It's
April, and they're still waiting.
Unfortunately, the problems with the mobile housing units
are not limited to the abysmal placement or pace of deployment.
Let me show you what this--I want to put up this slide here, if
I could.
This is from Clayton Homes. Okay? This is--we went online,
staff did good work. It's kind of hard to see there, but you
can go online right now, in Louisiana, and that top one, it's
called the Elation, you can--it says its in stock. They can buy
it between $26,000 and $45,000, right now. You can just push
the button and order it. And when we talked to the
representatives from Clayton Homes this morning, in Gonzales,
Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, they quoted $3,600 to $10,000 for
delivery and installation, and they can start today.
The Federal Government pays $150,000 for these units, and
you can go online and buy the nicest one they have for 45
grand, and for another 10 you can get it there. $100,000
premium we're paying, and they can't get them to the people
that are affected for months and months and months on end? Go
online, for goodness' sake, and you can do a better job and
save the taxpayers, literally, millions of dollars.
It's so frustrating to see these people suffer and hear
their horror stories.
And, by the way, with FEMA, when they purchased these
things at $150,000 a pop, we found a pattern of serious
maintenance issues with them. Electrical issues, clogs, leaks,
plumbing problems, doors that would not shut or lock, fires,
and malfunctioning fire suppression systems, HVAC systems that
were too hot, too cold, didn't work at all, unusable
furnishings. On average, average, each unit had more than 1.3
problems with it. Most concerning is the HVAC and thermostat
issue.
In October of 2016, a faulty MHU overheated and killed an
84-year-old man. In fact, let's put up the slide from The
Advocate, who had this story that ran. He was baked to death in
a FEMA trailer. And we have spent considerable time looking at
the suffering that this man went through and ultimately lost
his life. FEMA falsely told our committee staff, who was there
on the ground at an in-person briefing, there had been no
deaths due to faulty MHUs or any efforts to replace a pattern
of defective parts. That was absolutely not true.
Shortly after the man's gruesome death, FEMA ordered a
contractor, Chicago Bridge and Iron Company, to replace
approximately 1,500 thermostats. Sadly, in the midst of
recovery efforts, FEMA's priorities were clearly misplaced.
In an October 31, 2016, email uncovered by the committee, a
FEMA official writes, quote, ``We have no way to predict what
this news will do to our operation and how the congressional
office will use this prior to election,'' end quote.
This is not the first time FEMA has placed its own image
above aiding citizens in need. Ten years ago, the committee
held a hearing on formaldehyde levels in trailers deployed by
FEMA in Hurricane Katrina. Then Ranking Member Tom Davis
stated, quote, ``FEMA's concerns were a legal liability in
public relations, not health and human services,'' end quote.
It doesn't seem as if anything has changed since Hurricane
Katrina.
FEMA is repeating many of the same mistakes they should
have learned from Katrina. Additionally, we identified
pervasive waste of FEMA funded State-run Shelter At Home
Program. This program allows for $15,000 in temporary repairs
to a home so flood--so flood victims can remain in their homes
while finishing repairs. So the contractor gets $15,000, come
in and do some temporary repairs, then they can stay in their
home. The biggest beneficiary of this program were the
contractors who were allowed to make repairs that cost well
beyond their value. The State reimbursed contractors for
repairs based off negotiated and--I don't know. Talk about bad
negotiators--off negotiated itemized on the list. So let's look
at what we're paying for for basic items.
We went to Amazon.com, we figured out people know what that
is. You know, pay less than $100 bucks, you can get a Prime
membership and also watch some videos. These are what Shelter
at Home Program was paying. Okay? For the two-burner hot plate,
$120. You can go on Amazon, buy it for $22 bucks. Microwaves,
$133. You see a long list. The AC unit, $985; you can buy them
for $249. And guess what? Amazon will deliver it to your door
for free shipping. And if Amazon doesn't, my guess is every
retailer that's in Louisiana would also do it to help out their
friends in need right next door.
We're paying ridiculous prices. We're paying $150,000 a
unit, and we can't get it to the people.
Contractors were also able to charge up to $1,500 to
quickly inspect HVAC, electrical, and plumbing systems. The
committee has questions, though, about the quality and
workmanship of these temporary repairs. We met with an elderly
woman who's replacement sink was attached to her drywall
instead of into the studs. Let me show you what this looks
like. This is after the repairs.
If you can put up that slide.
As she puts it up, the sink fell on her foot resulting in a
painful and expensive hospital visit. These are far from the
only problems we've had with the recovery.
I don't know if we have that slide there, but this--
basically, the sink was installed, and it just fell right out
of the wall. And if you just see the surrounding area and what
it was looking like, it was absolutely just abysmal, abysmal
conditions.
We're concerned about the delays and the State's selection
of a contractor to manage the $1.6 billion Congress
appropriated in September. So the disaster happens. Congress
appropriates money very pretty swiftly, and reports indicate
that the State bungled the initial award and then restarted the
process 2 weeks ago. It's April 2017. This happened in August,
and they just restarted the process. So it's con the
bureaucracy instead of getting it to the victims.
Furthermore, the estimates are that the contractor who gets
awarded this is going to get $250 million to administer this.
Now, there's costs. I'm not saying there's no cost. But you've
got 600 families that are still in hotels. I can't see a single
thing that went right with this, except one thing: The men and
women, the families there in Louisiana, they took care of
themselves. They helped neighbor to neighbor. They got out
there and did what it took to take care of it.
But it's an embarrassment for the Federal Government, FEMA,
and those involved at the State level too that we are here in
April, and they still haven't solved this problem. And we've
got real people suffering, and that's--that's why we're having
this hearing today.
So I'd now like to recognize the ranking member, Mr.
Cummings, for his statement.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding
this hearing.
I've often said that--and you alluded to this--when I think
back at Katrina, it is something that I've talked about many,
many times, and that was the situation where people who kept
saying when the rubber meets the road, everything is going to
be fine. And when it came time for the rubber to meet the road,
we discovered there was no road.
The torrential rains that hit Louisiana last August have
been described as once-in-1,000-year event. Some areas received
as much as 2 feet of water and rose to record levels. The harm
inflicted was vast, flooding more than 60,000 homes and forcing
thousands of families to flee.
Today's hearing is an important opportunity to make sure
that we're doing everything possible to help the victims of
this historic flood. Our work has been bipartisan. And not only
do I appreciate that immensely, but I believe it makes our
committee more effective and more efficient.
After Hurricane Katrina, one of the key lessons we learned,
that there were some contractors involved in the recovery
effort were corrupt. I said it. Some of them were corrupt. Folk
had their hands out in the matter--in the midst of a disaster
because they wanted to take advantage of the moment. They did
not hesitate to exploit the disaster and billed the American
taxpayers, and they caused additional suffering to the
residents of the region. In other words, there was pain layered
on top of pain.
In response, we resolved to hold contractors to account,
and we pressed FEMA and other agencies to conduct more rigorous
oversight of their contractors. This is no doubt that things
have improved, no doubt about it, since Hurricane Katrina, but
I continue to have serious concerns about FEMA's reliance and
dependence on contractors, as well as its ability to hold those
contractors accountable.
Let me highlight one example. I think the chairman talked
about this briefly. Last October, an 84-year-old blind veteran,
Everett Wilson, was found dead in a manufactured housing unit
that he was provided after the floods. Apparently, there was a
malfunction in his thermostat, so the heat kept pumping and
pumping and pumping. When Mr. Wilson was found dead, it was 130
degrees in his unit.
As part of our investigation, our staff spoke to Mr.
Wilson's caretaker. She told us that the thermostat was
malfunctioning as soon as Mr. Wilson moved into the unit. She
said she called repeatedly to get help, and that the
maintenance repairman came out to his unit. However, she said
he claimed he was not qualified to fix the heating and air
conditioning system, so he left. And nobody else, apparently,
returned after that.
However, we've obtained internal documents showing that the
company has a terrible record of documenting its maintenance
calls and responding to maintenance requests. Approximately 1
month before Mr. Wilson's death, a FEMA official warned CB&I,
and I quote, ``I have seen at least 20 problems with your
subs,'' end of quote. He wrote, quote, ``Please drop the hammer
on these guys,'' end of quote.
In addition, our staff reviewed the company's maintenance
records in the weeks leading up to Mr. Wilson's death, and they
showed that CB&I received at least 25 calls from other
residents about heating and air conditioning problems in their
units. These problems did not get fixed before Mr. Wilson's
death, and they did not get fixed in the months afterwards.
When the rubber meets the road, no road.
For example, on January 4, a FEMA acquisitions quality
assurance specialist sent an email to a FEMA Federal
coordinating officer expressing concern that in December alone,
CB&I received 1,980 maintenance calls, and I quote, ``The
contractor only completed 198 of those, thus, 90 percent not
completed,'' end of quote. Rubber meet the road, no road. That
is 9 out of 10 calls the company failed to address.
CB and CI--CB&I also missed or failed to complete 40
percent of its monthly inspections of these manufactured
housing units. According to the same email, quote, ``Repeat
caller''--and I quote, ``Repeat caller complaints that go
without maintenance attention are numerous,'' end of quote.
So you had Mr. Wilson, who basically became collateral
damage. That's right. I worry that more and more people in our
country, because there is a lack of empathy, a lack of
professionalism, a lack of responsibility, a lack of decency,
allow others of us to become collateral damage.
So on January 16, a Federal coordinating officer at FEMA
emailed his colleague warning that, and I quote, ``CB&I's
maintenance subcontractor continues to struggle,'' end of
quote. And that the company was providing, and I quote,
``substandard performance,'' end of quote.
Today's--2 days later, on January 18, FEMA sent a letter of
concern to CB&I expressing, and I quote, ``concerns about your
current trend of performance.'' The letter highlighted problems
with, quote, ``completing and reporting of backlog maintenance
work orders and nonresponse to repeat calls from FEMA
applicants.'' So I'm assuming somebody is getting some money,
but nobody's performing the work.
The documents we have obtained show that this contractor
has a terrible, terrible record, and this demonstrates why
aggressive oversight is so critical and so crucial.
Finally, Governor Edwards, I want to thank you for
testifying here a second time, as well as for the testimony
that you provided about the value of the Shelter at Home
Program, which temporarily repaired more than 10,000 homes and
saved countless neighborhoods from abandonment. This vital
program can be improved, and I believe you would agree with
that, based on the experiences of Baton Rouge. And we look
forward to hearing from you about how to make productive
changes.
I want to thank all of our other witnesses for being here
today.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the bipartisan effort.
And with that, I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I also ask unanimous consent that the letter of concern
issued by FEMA as highlighted in your opening statement as well
as the article from The Advocate that I highlighted in my
statement, that both of these items be made part of the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
Chairman Chaffetz. We will hold the record open for 5
legislative days for any members who would like to submit a
written statement.
But now, we would like to welcome our witnesses. We're very
pleased for the cooperation and the accessibility for the
Honorable John Bel Edwards, the Governor of the great State of
Louisiana, for being here again.
We thank you, sir, for being here.
We also have Mr. Robert Fenton, Jr., acting administrator
for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, often referred to
as FEMA.
We have Rear Admiral David Boone, president for the Chicago
Bridge & Iron Federal Services.
We thank you, sir, for your service, but we also thank you
for being here today.
And we have Mr. Mark Harrell, emergency coordinator for
Livingston Parish, Louisiana. Somebody who is truly on the
front lines.
And, sir, we thank you for all of your efforts, and we
thank you for your candid testimony here today. So I want to
proactively thank you for being here as well.
Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses are to be sworn
before they testify. So if you'll please all rise and raise
your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're
about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?
Thank you.
Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
In order to allow time for proper discussion, we would
appreciate it if you would limit your oral testimony to 5
minutes. Your entire written record and any supplemental items
will be made part of the congressional record as well.
But if--we have lights there. As my colleague, Trey Gowdy,
likes to say, it's green, go; when it's yellow, speed up; and
when it's red, you've got to stop. So if you could just make
sure you move that microphone nice and close and hit the button
as you go along, we'd appreciate it.
Governor, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BEL EDWARDS
Governor Edwards. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member
Cummings, members of the committee, good morning and thank you
for the opportunity to be here today.
Since I was last here testifying before this committee, the
Louisiana congressional delegation and I discussed with you and
your colleagues, as well as the Obama and Trump
administrations, what it would take to give the people of
Louisiana a full recovery. These conversations have been
extremely productive.
First, I want to thank you for the $1.6 billion
appropriated thus far, and I'm grateful for the time this
committee staff has taken to visit Louisiana to better
understand the challenges we are facing. I'm also grateful to
be invited here to discuss how to improve and speed up the way
the Federal Government responds to natural disasters.
The historic March and August floods were the fourth most
costly flood event in United States history, with over 112,000
of homes with FEMA-verified loss. Understanding the scale of
the destruction is critical to any conversation about recovery
and where we go from here. Just as important is an
understanding of how Federal regulations have hindered our
ability to get the assistance we need for the people of
Louisiana. Prior to and throughout the immediate response of
the 2016 floods, FEMA was a very good partner, but the
transition from response to recovery is where challenges arose.
Since I took office as Governor last year, 57 of
Louisiana's 64 parishes have received Federal disaster
declarations, home to 85 percent of the State's population. The
waters may have receded, but their mark remains in living rooms
and schools and shops around the State. The State has worked
around the clock to act as quickly as possible within the
parameters set by Federal regulations, and yet we know there
are still improvements we can all make, which is why we are
here today, as there are lessons to be learned from every
disaster.
You have specifically asked me to talk to you about Shelter
at Home. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, we saw entire
communities turn into ghost towns. St. Bernard Parish, a suburb
of New Orleans, lost more than half of its population. Families
were broken apart, businesses closed, and many students and
teachers never returned to their classrooms. After last year's
flooding, it was important to us not to let that happen again.
However, many of the challenges that plagued the recovery from
Hurricane Katrina still cause problems today.
We looked to programs used around the country and lessons
learned from other devastating events, such as Superstorm
Sandy, with the objective of holding communities together, like
Livingston Parish. We studied New York's version of FEMA's STEP
program. We decided that a restructuring of that program was
our best opportunity to prevent repeating what happened in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Our version of STEP known as the Shelter at Home Program
provided a cost effective temporary housing option, given that
hotel, motel, and rental stock was insufficient even before the
storm and was greatly reduced due to flood damage, and also
because manufactured housing units were not readily available.
The purpose of Shelter at Home was to create a safe, secure,
and habitable home with a minimum of one operational bathroom,
running water, a functioning kitchen, and working heating, air,
hot water heater and electrical outlets among the list of 62
repair items, while homeowners made long-term permanent
repairs.
Without the Shelter at Home Program, we would have been
forced to put thousands of families in hotels, mostly outside
of their home towns and even outside the State, at a much
greater cost, roughly $40 million per month for the 11,000
families who used Shelter at Home.
However, we encountered numerous challenges within the
Federal process that limited the assistance we were able to
provide homeowners. For instance, there are certain repairs
that make a house look and feel like a home, such as insulation
and sheetrock on the exterior walls that were not permitted
under Federal guidelines. While we did request to expand the
program and include these repairs, we were denied.
Expectations, understandably, were often far above the FEMA
restrictions we were bound by, and early on we struggled to
communicate that effectively to homeowners. Knowing that the
repairs were often austere and primarily of a temporary nature,
we began carefully outlining to homeowners, before the work
began, what the scope of work would include.
Simply put, TSA and MHUs don't fill the need. STEP is too
limited, but you can help. For example, consider carving out an
exception to the duplication of benefits language in Title 42
and form an incorporating step into FEMA regulations under the
public assistance program, category B. This will allow States
to have prestorm contracts in place so that implementation time
and program costs are reduced greatly. But this is just one
example. There are numerous adjustments both on the regulatory
side and within statute that would give States the flexibility
to provide a more robust and timely recovery for our citizens.
I look forward to continuing with this conversation today,
as I know we have a shared goal of expediting and improving the
overall recovery process.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Governor Edwards follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Chaffetz. Thanks, Governor.
Mr. Fenton, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT J. FENTON, JR.
Mr. Fenton. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member
Cummings, and members of the committee. I'm Bob Fenton, acting
administrator of FEMA. Thank you for inviting me here today to
provide an update on our Louisiana recovery operations.
I began my career at FEMA in 1996, and since then have been
deployed to more than 50 disasters across the country, some of
the largest in the last two decades, including the World Trade
Center on 9/11, Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi, and Hurricane
Sandy in New York. During my 20 years in this business, I have
learned many truths about disasters and helping survivors
during and following their worst days.
First, every disaster is different. They have different
causes, different consequences, different survivors, different
communities, each with varying levels of resiliency that bring
their own unique requirements and challenges.
Second, in response to disasters, we can be cost effective,
precise, or fast, but we can't be all three. Time is a
commodity that I can't replace, but at FEMA we strive to
support survivors as quickly and effectively as possible, and
are constantly seeking better, more effective ways to serve.
Serving the people of the communities of the United States
is what motivates me, the men and women at FEMA, the dedicated
professionals working in emergency management across the
country.
The historic flooding in Louisiana in August of 2016
dispersed tens of thousands of survivors from their homes. Even
though the waters receded, many survivors found their homes
completely destroyed and themselves in need of shelter while
their communities are rebuilt.
FEMA remains committed to Louisiana recovery. Since August,
we have approved more than $764 million in individual
assistance, obligated more than $325 million of an estimated
$677 million in public assistance. FEMA provided the needed
housing to roughly 90 percent of the survivors within 6 months.
Communities recover more quickly and completely when survivors
find their sense of normalcy post disaster, when kids go to
school with their friends, families attend their regular
church, and people return to work. By keeping survivors close
to their communities, we can help them get back to their lives
more quickly and the community recover fully.
When a disaster devastates the entire housing market,
including rental and hotel properties, finding housing options
close to survivors' homes presents a challenge. Survivors'
housing needs are met through a combination of insurance, loans
from SBA, and rental or repair systems from FEMA. FEMA's
authorities alone will not make survivors whole. And FEMA
assistance by itself cannot rebuild a family's home as it was.
Our authorities do allow us to make minimal repairs through
programs like Shelter at Home to get survivors back into their
own home or provide temporary housing through hotels, rental
properties, or manufactured home units, also called MHUs.
In providing temporary housing, our preference is to use
existing housing stock, which is, more often than not, the most
cost effective and efficient way to get people into temporary
housing. However, there are occasions when a survivor needs are
best met with one of our MHUs. In disasters, a large number of
displaced persons and limited availability of rental
properties, MHUs fill a critical gap. When MHUs are used, FEMA
has an obligation to ensure they are safe and durable. We build
MHUs to HUD standards to be deployable to any environment in
the United States. We also coordinate with local governments to
meet their codes and ordinances and to insure that utilities
connect. And finally, we provide a 24/7 maintenance line to
survivors at move-in and are available to address any concerns
they have about their MHU. We inspect them monthly to ensure
they are all well maintained.
However, tragically, in October, Mr. Everett Wilson, one of
our disaster survivors, passed a way in a unit we provided.
FEMA takes the loss of Mr. Wilson seriously, and I take it
personally. I have met with the State director and the
Louisiana Governor several times. My first trip after assuming
this role was to visit Baton Rouge to see for myself the status
of our recovery mission.
As I said when we began, in disaster response, we can't be
cost effective, precise, and fast, but that doesn't mean we
don't try. Since assuming this role, I have directed our staff
to look at new, out-of-the-box solutions to improving our
housing program.
At the end of February, we hosted a housing summit to
identify and evaluate alternative options, and based on their
recommendations, I instructed them to work with academic
institutions and industry to identify new innovative solutions
to disaster housing. Providing housing for survivors after a
disaster is always challenging, but we work every day to find
better, more effective ways to accomplish our vital mission and
to provide a consistent high level of service to all survivors.
I look forward to working with Congress as we seek better
ways to serve the needs of disaster survivors, and I am happy
to take any questions you may have at this time.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Fenton follows:]
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Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
Mr. Boone, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL DAVID BOONE
Admiral Boone. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings,
Congressman Graves, and members of the committee, I appreciate
the invitation to be with you today to discuss CB&I Federal
Services' role in the Baton Rouge flood disaster recovery. I
ask that my full statement be made part of the record.
My name is David Boone, and I'm PRESIDENT of CB&I Federal
Services. Prior to joining CB&I in December of 2013, I served
for 30 years in the United States Navy. I was a civil engineer
corps officer and a Seabee. Those 30 years provided me with an
exceedingly rich source of perspective. My transition from a
military officer to president of this company has turned out to
be a very natural continuation of my career as both demand the
highest levels of dedication to the American taxpayer.
During my Navy career, I participated in many disaster
response missions. When we received this task order from FEMA,
I was very anxious and determined for our organization to
respond well in performing its mission in relieving the victims
from the misery of the disaster. We provided a focus of
resources and leadership to ensure success of our mission.
I believe our team was highly successful in this endeavor.
We serve the U.S. Government. We serve those who the U.S.
Government serves. And in this particular case, we faithfully
assisted and continue to assist victims of one of the worst
flood events in the history of our country. We are proud of our
work, but make no mistake, this is difficult work, and at times
it's heartbreaking work.
Our company has provided disaster relief assistance to FEMA
since 2005, and we have successfully completed over 100 task
orders. After Hurricane Katrina and Rita, we dewatered New
Orleans, patched roofs, and set up many thousands of housing
units for citizens who had nowhere to live.
On May 8, 2009, FEMA awarded CB&I Federal Services a
contract to provide disaster recovery services on task orders
to be issued as needed over the life of the contract. CB&I was
evaluated and awarded as the best value of all the competing
contractors. That, in turn, resulted in FEMA assigning CB&I
Federal Services to the southeast region, which is the most
disaster-prone region in the United States. CB&I was determined
by FEMA to be the most qualified emergency response contractor,
and its rates were determined to be fair and reasonable to the
U.S. Government.
Baton Rouge is not just a job site for CB&I Federal
Services. It's our home as well. We have several offices--
office locations in the Baton Rouge area. We have employees who
have lost everything. We are members of this community. For
much of our staff, this is home, and it is personal to us. We
are not just a contractor that came to this area in response to
the flood. Many of our employees live and work in Baton Rouge
and personally suffered as a result of the flooding. I
personally walked those neighborhoods. I saw the piled up
personal belongings. I held and cried with employees. This was
personal to us.
I'm also proud to say that many of our employees responded
to help others as volunteers, and our company gave them the
opportunity to continue working as volunteers. A number of our
employees were part of what became known as the Cajun Navy,
serving to rescue people with their personal watercraft. So
when we knew that there was a potential for our company to
receive this task order to do the best--to do this work, our
employees were motivated to do the best possible job to make a
difference and help those devastated by disaster. It amazed me
that we had employees that lost everything back at work within
days striving to help others get back on their feet and support
others.
I thank you, Chairman Chaffetz and Ranking Member Cummings,
for the invitation to be here today. Currently, we have zero
work in backlog related to installation under this task order.
We have received only positive comments and glowing accolades
from FEMA at all levels about our performance under this task.
Congressman Graves, we will stay in your district until the
job is done. We are your constituents, and together we will
help our friends and neighbors get back on their feet.
As I said at the outset of my testimony, I take the task of
serving my fellow Americans very seriously, and I ensure that
everyone who works for and with me does as well.
I stand ready to answer your questions you may have. Thank
you very much.
[Prepared statement of Admiral Boone follows:]
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Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
Mr. Harrell, you're now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MARK HARRELL
Mr. Harrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee. I
appreciate this. I would--I also want to thank you for
recognizing Livingston Parish as being a part of this flood. I
provided some inundation maps for you. Ninety-four percent of
our folks suffered, 94 percent.
I'd like to move on to information sharing. Constantly, we
run into resistance with FEMA on the individual assistance
side. Our council, our parish president, everyone, gets calls
from our citizens wanting help because they can't get through
to the hotline with FEMA. It's ridiculous. So when we try to
follow through and help our citizens, we're constantly told,
that's a Privacy Act. We cannot give you this information. What
are we to do? I ask you to please look into this, make some
changes. Every emergency manager in the country should have
access to this information.
Secondly, our hazard mitigation. It is one of the, I'm
going to say, the best programs that FEMA has to offer. We're
building safe rooms. We're doing everything with that. We're
doing drainage. One thing that I faced a problem with for the
last 12 years is trying to build a warehouse for our
commodities to help our citizens. It was in there, and then in
2009, it was taken out where we cannot build, do any new
construction with hazard mitigation funding, unless it's a safe
room. So I ask you to please look into that, see if we can
change policy to where that can be offered again.
Also, we would like the ability to use hazard mitigation
funding for commodities. Let us buy our meals, ready to eat,
water, couch, blankets, hygiene kits. That saves you from
having to haul them all over the country to get them to us
weeks later. So help us help ourselves.
And I would like to point out right now, in 1 year's time,
Livingston Parish is the only parish that had a Federal
declaration three times. All three disasters, we're the only
one. So you understand why we need to do some reform with FEMA.
It's going to help everyone.
At one time, the Federal coordinating officer, once he was
appointed, could make decisions in the field. He could use some
common-sense approach, change some policy, move forward with
things. In the last 10 years, that has not happened. Everything
must come from the Federal coordinating officer all the way
back to Washington, DC be delayed for weeks and weeks or
months, and then we still can't move forward with anything. So
we could have made a lot of decisions in Baton Rouge at the
joint field office had the Federal coordinating officer been
allowed those opportunities.
The MHU program, as you stated, is definitely flawed, and
I'm going to leave it at that. There are other opportunities.
There's other ways to do better with this. It's simply issue
the State or issue the jurisdiction that's affected and declare
it a block grant. Let them handle the housing. I mean, it's got
to get much easier. As you stated, we can buy mobile homes
local if we need to. There's all kinds of opportunities if you
provide it to the locals and let us do it ourselves.
First responder agencies throughout the country suffer from
the fact that if a responding agency comes in to assist--and
understand, Livingston Parish, Ascension, EBR, it was a war
zone, just like it was during Katrina. We had first responders
from across the country and the northern part of the State come
in to help. We can't seem to get a project worksheet worked out
to where we won't have to cover 100 percent of it. Just--and
there's nothing prohibiting that, but we just need to look into
this.
Lastly, I would just like to say that I've met resistance
on public assistance on our roads. And Mr. Cummings brought up
how the roads were inundated with the homes earlier. Ninety-
nine percent of our roads was under water for 7 to 10 days.
However, when we--excuse me--when we talked to FEMA about it,
they say, we have nothing that we can help you on unless we can
see the damage. I've provided you with some backup
documentation that proves otherwise. I'm asking you to please
help us get FEMA to respond to that. And it's not only a
Livingston Parish issue. This is across the country. Everyone
faces it.
And then I'd like for you to look at something that
happened after Katrina that helped the school systems, NFIP.
And it's in my packet.
Thank you for your time. I'm here to answer any questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Harrell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. Appreciate it.
We'll now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Hice,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Governor, how many did the--how much did the Shelter at
Home Program cost?
Governor Edwards. We haven't--I'm sorry. Sorry about that.
We--Congressman, we have not closed out the program yet.
Mr. Hice. How much did it cost so far?
Governor Edwards. I think about $157 million. We're
expecting $164-,$165 million by the time it closes out.
Mr. Hice. All right. How much did you receive in Federal
funds?
Governor Edwards. For the Shelter at Home?
Mr. Hice. Well, for the disaster as a whole.
Governor Edwards. Well, we--well, it's hard to answer. The
Shelter at Home funding is coming from FEMA with a cost share
from the State.
Mr. Hice. I think you mentioned it a while ago, 1.6 billion
was approved.
Governor Edwards. Yeah, the chairman mentioned that. That's
for the CDBG piece. It's been approved. We have not received
the funding yet.
Mr. Hice. How much money has been distributed to those
affected by the flood?
Governor Edwards. Out of the CDBG? None.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Let me--you did not call for an evacuation.
Is that correct? When the report was coming the flood was on
the way, what--did you call statewide an evacuation?
Governor Edwards. I don't know that we called for a
statewide evacuation, other than in those low-lying areas where
we asked people to move before the roads became impassable.
Mr. Hice. As I understand, the National Weather Service was
predicting this was going to be a storm, the damage of which
floods would go beyond that of 1983. Why would you not call an
evacuation?
Governor Edwards. Yeah. I'm not sure the National Weather
Service said that in advance of the rain falling. And, in fact,
this was not a storm that we would typically have in Louisiana
where you have a tropical storm or a hurricane.
Mr. Hice. From what I understand, the National Weather
Service made that prediction. Well, let me put it this way: Did
the State do everything that you could to prepare for the
flood?
Governor Edwards. I am convinced that we did a very good
job, in fact, working with FEMA, as I said earlier, before and
during and in the immediate aftermath of the storm in terms of
the response. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hice. So you would give yourself what kind of grade?
Governor Edwards. A high grade. I mean, I don't--I don't
think anything is ever perfect. And, certainly, we learned
lessons, but I would give ourselves a B plus, something on
that.
Mr. Hice. A B plus with this kind of horrible outcome. That
sounds like a very generous grade when there's--there's so much
destruction.
How many people are still--have permanently still been
displaced from their homes?
Governor Edwards. Well, I don't have the number for how
many are permanently displaced from their homes in terms of not
back in today, because there are multiple programs to--that
provide relief for homeowners, including the National Flood
Insurance Program. And I'm not sure where they are in terms of
getting claims paid and homes repaired.
We do know that there were 112,000 homes with FEMA-verified
loss, and that's a very significant----
Mr. Hice. But you don't know how many of those homes have
been repaired or how many are back in their homes?
Governor Edwards. I do not know across the board. I know
that there are far too many homes that are not repaired, and we
have too many people who are not living in their homes, which
is--which is one of the reasons that I'm here today and
continue to come back asking for additional assistance.
Mr. Hice. Is it true that you were at a fundraiser in
Colorado when the National Weather Service was calling for a
flood in your home State?
Governor Edwards. No, sir.
Mr. Hice. It's not true?
Governor Edwards. No, sir.
Mr. Hice. Where were you?
Governor Edwards. I was in Colorado at a Democratic
Governors' Association conference.
Mr. Hice. Okay. When did you return?
Governor Edwards. That afternoon. The Friday afternoon. The
same day the rain started.
Mr. Hice. All right. Is it true that days following the
flood, you told a media reporter that the State was not in need
of Federal flood resources?
Governor Edwards. I don't believe I would have said that. I
would have said that we--there wasn't anything that the local
governments were asking for that we were unable to provide.
Mr. Hice. From what I understand, the comment was made that
you did not need any Federal resources. I was wondering why you
would make such a claim with such a devastating flood.
Governor Edwards. Well, I think the--if I recall correctly,
the conversation was around requesting the Federal disaster
declaration. We were working with the regional coordinating
officer from FEMA to determine the most appropriate time to
request that declaration. And one of the things you have to
certify with my signature is that the local governments are
asking for assistance we are unable to provide. It wasn't until
that was the case and I was able to make that certification
that we requested the declaration, which we received very, very
promptly.
Mr. Hice. Well, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it.
But, Governor, with all due respect, it looks to me like
one disaster led to another disaster from decisions coming from
the State. I cannot imagine how you would give yourself a B
plus in this.
But with that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman yields back.
We'll now recognize Mrs. Demings of Florida for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Demings. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and also,
thank you to our ranking member.
Mr. Boone, I want to ask you about--or share with you an
example of your company's unacceptable performance from
January. As I described this almost unbelievable series of
maintenance failures, I would like to remind everyone that this
happened to a real person.
This happened to an elderly woman, who had already been
dispatched from her home by a flood before she ended up living
in this manufactured housing unit.
First, the sprinkler covers in the unit fell off the
ceiling and hit the woman, cutting her face. She was lying in
bed. CB&I dispatched a technician, but that person was not able
to fix the problem. There was zero followup. And then a couple
of weeks later, the CB&I inspector told the resident that she
should no longer cook in the unit. He said the heat from the
cooking range might cause the still broken sprinkler system to
flood the trailer.
Unfortunately, it got worse. At 9:30 on January 18, nearly
a month after the sprinkler fell from the ceiling, the
resident's unit began to flood with water from the toilet and
the sewer. She called the CB&I maintenance line again to report
this active flooding, and she was told that someone would call
her back shortly. The flooding started about 9:30 a.m. By 6:30
p.m., CB&I still had not sent any help.
Mr. Boone, what is your response to this?
Admiral Boone. My response--sorry. My response is that's
unacceptable performance. I wasn't aware of those set of
circumstances, and we should address them.
Mrs. Demings. You testified that you subcontract out the
maintenance of these units. Is that correct?
Admiral Boone. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Demings. Have you fired any of your subcontractors for
their poor performance?
Admiral Boone. We have.
Mrs. Demings. Mr. Boone, how do you conduct oversight of
your subcontractors to ensure that they are performing this
very--the very important duties in an acceptable manner?
Admiral Boone. We have a quality management program not
only for our subs but for our own CB&I work that manages the
quality of performance that we're providing.
Mrs. Demings. So if that be the case, Mr. Boone, how could
this unfortunate incident even be possible, since you're saying
you provide oversight?
Admiral Boone. I don't have an answer to that question. I'd
have to dig into the specifics.
Mr. Fenton, how can FEMA exercise oversight of
subcontractors in a more effective way?
Mr. Fenton. We do that through a number of ways. We have a
contractor's officers technical representative that overseas
the prime, and then have project officers that oversee the
whole operation the contractors are doing. And that is where we
are aware of issues, we work through the prime to make changes
based on what those issues are. And there's a set of escalation
activities that would happen over the course of the contract,
and we would go through those according to the regulations.
Mrs. Demings. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Cummings. Would the gentlelady yield? Would the
gentlelady yield?
Mrs. Demings. Yes. Yes, I will.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
I want to go back to--Mr. Fenton, I want you to address
some of the concerns that Mr. Harrell----
Mr. Harrell. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. --when he was talking about--when the
chairman put up a chart with all those--the differences in the
prices we could get things from Amazon. Talk--can you talk
about that a little bit? He said there were several times
when--certain situations where it would have been better if the
locals--am I right, Mr. Harrell? --were allowed to do certain
things.
Are you--is it that you're handicapped by regulations, Mr.
Fenton? You remember--you remember the discussion, right?
Mr. Fenton. Yes. So I think, specifically, he had a number
of issues going across a bunch of different programs that we
have. But, specifically, with regard to our individual
assistance program, it's direct assistance from FEMA underneath
section 408 that we provide. Following DM82K, we lost the
authority to go ahead and do direct grants to States and local
governments. So the assistance flows from us to the individual,
which is, I believe, the issue that's--that the gentleman is
bringing up with regard to the ability to share information.
When we have personal information of survivors, we're limited
to what we can share as far as their personal information.
Mr. Cummings. I'll get to that one. But what about the
pricing? Talk about the pricing and what the chairman talked
about a little earlier, the Amazon comparison.
Mr. Fenton. Sure. Sure. I don't know the specifics, whether
we're comparing apples to apples or apples to oranges or
whether the model numbers are correct. We'd have to look into
that and do that.
We purchase based on what is--to ensure habitability, to
ensure safety of the items we're purchasing. Usually, we
purchase to a higher level because of the ability to track
items----
Mr. Cummings. Well, my time has expired, but I just--those
comparisons that he made or contrasts are glaring, and I don't
think that your response just now meets the level of adequate
response, but I'm sure we'll get to that later.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
We'll now go to Mr. Mitchell of Michigan. You're now
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Mitchell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Governor Edwards, the Shelter at Home Program was put in
place to allow for an alternative for residents to get
temporary repairs to remain in their home versus the cost of
manufactured housing units and all the others things. One of
the concerns, though, is when the survey was done this past
December, over 2,000 people, one-fifth of the homeowners that
use the Shelter at Home Program, 46 percent of them said that
they would not return home; that, in fact, they were concerned
about the shoddy repairs and questionable living conditions.
How are you resolving that given that you've given yourself
a B plus grade?
Governor Edwards. Well, in terms of the number of folks who
have not returned to the home after Shelter at Home was
completed, I would tell you that the 80 percent, assuming
that's representative of the entire 11,000, represents a
tremendous cost savings and largely acknowledges that the
program was successful in keeping people in their communities.
Further, for some of the folks who didn't move back into
their homes proper because the Shelter at Home actually
restored a functioning restroom and electrical service, they
were able to move travel trailers and other trailers onto the
property even though they weren't provided by FEMA, they
weren't MHUs, and they were able to live on the properties but
not in the house while they were able to do the permanent
repairs.
Mr. Mitchell. Let's talk about cost----
Governor Edwards. And we also made sure that the houses did
not suffer mold or animal infestations, which would render them
even a bigger problem for the homeowner going forward.
Mr. Mitchell. Governor, 46 percent of the people chose not
to move back in. But let's talk about cost-effectiveness.
The Shelter at Home price for, for example, electrical
assistance, inspection repair, an invoice that was done that in
fact the work was not done, the family did themselves--I should
say, electrical systems inspection test, not repair, was over
$500. Now, I just completed a 3-hour home inspection, 3 hours
inspector stayed and tested all the receptacles, opened up the
panel, tested two units, heating and cooling, went up on the
roof, I could give you the list, he spent 3 hours. Do you want
to guess what that cost me?
Governor Edwards. No, sir.
Mr. Mitchell. $625. $625. Just to test the electrical
system cost the Federal Government, 10 percent paid by the
State, but the majority by us, the Federal Government, $527.
How do you justify some of the prices? I mean, pest control.
They put in a $10 container of bug spray from Home Depot and
the charge was $425. Heck of a contract.
Governor Edwards. Yeah. And, Congressman, the only thing
that I can tell you is that we quickly set up a program modeled
after the New York STEP program and made sure that we brought
in enough contractors where they would competitively bid, drive
the cost down. We then used Xactimate in order to individually
price the 62 repair items and drove the price down further.
Mr. Mitchell. By bringing these contracts, how did it drive
down the price, when, in fact, I made a phone call through a
realtor that referred me to a gentleman, and it was $625? I
didn't have to bring in a whole lot of contractors to get
competition. I mean, how is it that we got--how did that work?
Governor Edwards. Well, I think the nature of the program
was a little different when we were looking at, at that time,
as many as 20,000 homes, and we ended up doing a little less
than 11,000.
Mr. Mitchell. But we paid in this instance just to inspect
and test an electrical system over $500. I mean, I understand
the scale is different, but the reality----
Governor Edwards. But, Congressman, my point was we had
multiple contractors who were bidding costs. We then analyzed
those costs. We drove them down even further using the
Xactimate to make sure that we did reduce the overall cost of
the program. And would we have liked to have reduced it
further? Yes, we would have. But at the end of the day, the
cost of the Shelter at Home Program was much less than the cost
of putting them in hotels or motels.
Mr. Mitchell. Well, let me----
Governor Edwards. Certainly a mobile--manufactured housing
units, which really weren't available.
Mr. Mitchell. Before I retired, I was a State and Federal
contractor at points in time, and I have better than--those are
quite nice contracts in terms of the markup that the chairman
noticed on some of the materials: $525 to test an electrical
system. And, frankly, if 46 percent of the customers that I
worked with failed to succeed, they'd have terminated my
contract.
How many contracts did you--how many contracts did you
terminate out of the build--the home program?
Governor Edwards. I don't know how many we terminated in
terms of the construction contractors. I do know that we moved
some work around and took some work from some who were being
slow and gave it to other contractors.
But I will tell you, with respect to the chairman's
pricing, you should note that the prices he mentioned did not
include the cost of labor or the insulation materials on those
things, which----
Mr. Mitchell. But it did include Amazon Prime, Amazon
dropping them off at their doorstep, sir.
My time has expired, but one comment for you. With all due
respect, sir, I suggest you reconsider the grade of B-plus
because, in my view of this, the Shelter At Home Program
reflects a lot of failures, and I wouldn't grade it a B-plus.
Thank you, sir.
Governor Edwards. Thank you.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman yields back.
We'll now recognize Ms. Plaskett from the Virgin Islands
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member,
for holding this hearing.
FEMA, of course, we understand is very important and the
work that their contractors do for communities who are in these
flood areas and who are in--have natural disasters are
paramount. So I am here not just speaking on behalf of those
communities, such as my colleagues Congressman Richmond and
Congressman Graves, but my own community in the Virgin Islands,
as well as Florida and the Southeast.
Admiral Boone, I want to ask you about a statement that you
made this morning. It's in your oral statement as well as your
written statement. I'm going to quote you as having said, ``We
have received only positive comments and glowing accolades from
FEMA at all levels about our performance under this task.''
Admiral Boone, would you stand by that statement?
Admiral Boone. Absolutely. So, during the events, we
obviously were ramping up to address the tasking we were
getting from FEMA. So, on a continuous basis, I asked my vice
president of operations and the project manager----
Ms. Plaskett. And who would those individuals be?
Admiral Boone. Larry Hauser and Kevin Neal.
Ms. Plaskett. Okay.
Admiral Boone. --who had a recurring and regular
relationship with FEMA officials, for feedback on what their
perception of our performance was. And so we, as late as a week
and a half ago, continue to receive very positive comments.
Ms. Plaskett. Well, that's a problem to me on a couple of
levels: one, that you would state that continuation of positive
comments and glowing accolades, and particularly, as you
mentioned, Kevin Neal as being someone--I believe he--we have
him listed as your senior project manager, correct?
Admiral Boone. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Plaskett. Because our--the committee received documents
from you, and we have an email of September, dated September 27
of 2016, and that's from FEMA's Region VI branch director,
Robert Jones, addressed to Mr. Neal. And in that email, the
FEMA branch director wrote, and I quote, ``Please get your
crews in line so that we are able to move forward with these
issues with minimal issues. Today, I am scrubbing my emails,
and I have seen at least 20 problems with your subs. Please
drop the hammer on these guys because their performance does
not look good on you and your reputation that you and your team
have established.''
Have you seen that email? It's up there for you.
Admiral Boone. No, ma'am.
Ms. Plaskett. Because that's an email that your company
submitted to us from FEMA to Mr. Neal, who is telling you that
he's getting glowing comments from FEMA. Do you view this email
as positive comment or an accolade?
Admiral Boone. No, ma'am.
Ms. Plaskett. I didn't either. So why was it necessary for
FEMA to send this email to your company and tell you to drop
the hammer on your subcontractors?
Admiral Boone. I don't know. I haven't seen the email and
the total context of the issue. So that's something to be
looked at.
Ms. Plaskett. Well, we know from our investigation that
we've had several issues. We heard from Congresswoman Demings
about the woman that was an unfortunate victim. We also have
information about another person who had--Mr. Everett Wilson,
an 84-year-old blind Air Force veteran who was found dead in a
housing unit because of a malfunctioning thermostat that CB&I
was supposed to have replaced back in August and October 2015.
So you know about those issues.
Admiral Boone. So the thermostat was not to be replaced
prior to his passing; that came out afterwards, just to be
clear on that issue.
Ms. Plaskett. But we know that thermostats needed to be
replaced, correct?
Admiral Boone. We didn't receive that direction from FEMA
until into October.
Ms. Plaskett. Well, in a meeting after Mr. Wilson's death,
CBI told FEMA that you had replaced at least 40 thermostats in
the week immediately preceding Mr. Everett's death, did you
not?
Admiral Boone. I don't know that fact.
Ms. Plaskett. So if you--you knew that thermostats needed
to be replaced. Maybe his was scheduled to be replaced after
his death----
Admiral Boone. We didn't----
Ms. Plaskett. --but you had been replacing other
thermostats before his death.
Admiral Boone. We didn't know about the thermostats until
after his passing.
Ms. Plaskett. You didn't know what about the thermostats?
Admiral Boone. The replacement. We didn't receive direction
from FEMA until after his passing.
Ms. Plaskett. But why, then, would you have replaced 40 of
them before his passing?
Admiral Boone. Perhaps those thermostats were discovered
defective on an inspection. I don't know about the----
Ms. Plaskett. Forty?
Admiral Boone. I don't know----
Ms. Plaskett. Not one; 40.
Admiral Boone. I understand.
Ms. Plaskett. So, obviously, you had some schedule of
replacing them before his death.
Admiral Boone. There were 3,000--well, at that point, I
don't know how many trailers. But I don't know the specifics of
that. So I can't answer that question.
Ms. Plaskett. Okay. I'm sorry. I've exhausted my time.
Chairman Chaffetz. Will the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. Plaskett. Yes, sir.
Chairman Chaffetz. Following up, both CB&I and FEMA, we
have asked you for the emails relating to this issue. You have
not provided those in their totality to this committee. I need
you to both tell me when we're going to get those emails.
Mr. Fenton?
Mr. Fenton. I was told that any email with regard to this
incident was provided to you. If that's not the case, I'll go
back and----
Chairman Chaffetz. We don't believe it is. We believe that
production is incomplete.
Mr. Fenton. Okay. Well----
Chairman Chaffetz. We need you to come back to us and tell
us when we have 100 percent of the documents that we requested.
Mr. Fenton. I'll personally go back today and make sure you
receive everything. There's nothing that----
Chairman Chaffetz. Appreciate it.
Mr. Fenton. --we're going to hold. We'll give you
everything that we have.
Chairman Chaffetz. Appreciate it.
Mr. Fenton. Yes, sir.
Chairman Chaffetz. Mr. Boone?
Admiral Boone. Chairman, we received notification only last
week to provide----
Chairman Chaffetz. The letters went out on March 21----
Admiral Boone. Right.
Chairman Chaffetz. --which is not just last week, but keep
going.
Admiral Boone. We have provided over a million pages in
documents in various forms and formats. So we will continue to
work as diligently as possible. I've devoted resources and
focus to this. So we're continuing to work this.
Chairman Chaffetz. So the question is, when are we going to
get 100 percent?
Admiral Boone. I'll have to go back to staff and see what--
but we're working this as diligently as possible.
Chairman Chaffetz. You did give us a fairly sizeable
document dump of invoices and individual things, but this is
something we specifically have asked for, and I just want to
make sure Ms. Plaskett and the whole committee gets these as
well.
Admiral Boone. Yes, sir.
Chairman Chaffetz. You'll get us an estimate on the date of
that?
Admiral Boone. Yes, sir.
Chairman Chaffetz. Okay.
Ms. Plaskett. And, Mr. Chair?
Chairman Chaffetz. Yes. Go ahead.
Ms. Plaskett. I would just want to know if Mr. Boone,
Admiral Boone, at this time would like to retract that
statement that he had made previously, which is on the record
under oath. I don't want him to get himself in trouble at this
point.
Chairman Chaffetz. Which statement?
Ms. Plaskett. About having had only accolades and good
words from FEMA.
Admiral Boone. I can only attest to the feedback that I
have received. Obviously, you've presented some information I
haven't seen before. So I'd like the opportunity to review that
before I make any changes to my statement.
Mr. Cummings. Would the gentlelady yield?
Ms. Plaskett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Boone, your company has a problem. If I
were running your company and I had these kinds of problems and
something did not flow up to me, the very things that could
destroy my business, there's something wrong with the company;
there's something wrong with the management. And it might be
you, but there's something wrong.
Anyway, I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentlewoman yields back.
I would now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
DeSantis, for 5 minutes.
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Fenton, I just want to ask while I have you here, we
obviously suffered damage on the East Coast of the United
States. I represent Florida. The Stafford Act has the public
assistance program that can fund replacement of sand on damaged
public beaches under certain conditions. And we currently in
Florida have the State and then localities working to secure
funding to restore some of the dune structure prior to the next
hurricane season.
It's a tough process. We have partners who are kind of
ready to go. Can you commit to really working to streamline
this so that whatever we can get lined up, we can get lined up
before the next hurricane season, when there's some significant
safety concerns?
Mr. Fenton. I'm not aware of the specific situation. I am
aware of policies to replace sand on beaches, that they have to
be engineered. Typically, my experience is what holds it up is
environmental and other requirements in order to go ahead and
move forward on that. But I'll look into your specific issue,
sir, and make sure that we're moving as quick as we can with
the authorities to go ahead and repair that.
Mr. DeSantis. Yeah. I appreciate it----
Mr. Fenton. Yes, sir.
Mr. DeSantis. --because there's been significant damage to
some of the dune structure such that, if we do have another
major storm surge, I mean, there's much less protection. And I
think it could be corrected, but obviously we need to get our
ducks in a row.
The other issue I think people have run into is the debris
removal and getting the reimbursements. The guidelines that
FEMA has are very confusing to a lot of our local folks, and we
work with them as best we can, but it's a cumbersome process.
And I was wondering, do you think there are ways that either
Congress could revise the Stafford Act, or can FEMA revise its
guidelines for debris removal so that we can avoid some of the
delays in reimbursements? Because some of the local
governments, it will take years for them to get reimbursed, and
it's tough for them, because they don't have a credit card like
the Federal Government does.
Mr. Fenton. So debris in public areas, public rights of
way, is eligible. And, basically, what we require is monitoring
so that we ensure that what we're providing is what was
removed, reduced, or eventually put into landfills or other
means. I think where it becomes difficult is when we start
talking about debris removal on private property, and that
becomes the issue. And typically it's--we based our rules on
what the local ordinances are and declaring that it's a public
health threat in order to move it off there.
So our authority applies to public rights of way, public
areas. It has to be an imminent threat to public health and
safety to remove that. I think it's pretty easy when you're in
that area. When you get into private property, it's more
difficult. And we've done a number of things to provide
guidance, training to make sure that we've made our rules more
simple for private property debris removal, which is usually
the more difficult.
Mr. DeSantis. Well, if you guys can, you know, work to
proactively relay that and try to alleviate some of the
confusion, I think that would be helpful, because I think that
there are these issues where they're just trying to figure out
what they got to do. They want to get rid of it. They're going
to front money, but they want to at least know whether it's
going to be eligible for reimbursement. So I appreciate that.
And if you can follow up with me about the dunes, we'd
appreciate that very much.
I'll yield back the balance of my time to Mr. Chaffetz.
Chairman Chaffetz. Governor, how many people are still
displaced?
Governor Edwards. Chairman, I am not certain, as I sit here
today, how many of our homeowners are not at home. We know that
there are, I think, 250 families still in hotels and motels. We
know that there are a number of individuals who, for example,
under the National Flood Insurance Program either are starting
to work or haven't had their claims paid yet, and they are
trying to get back in as well.
Chairman Chaffetz. But do you have a guess as to how many
people are displaced?
Governor Edwards. I don't have a guess. I would be able to
perhaps----
Chairman Chaffetz. Governor----
Governor Edwards. --get you the information. We have a
number of individuals, for example, who are living with family
members, and so it's--to get you the number is very difficult.
We know that there are thousands of families not yet living in
their homes. I can give you a more precise answer after we do
some analysis and we look at it across the various programs.
Chairman Chaffetz. Governor, you know how bad that looks,
right? I mean, you are coming here for a hearing about this,
and you don't even have a guess as to how many people are
displaced?
Governor Edwards. I do not.
Chairman Chaffetz. You're that clueless?
Governor Edwards. I'm not that clueless. We have a lot of
people in homes that are not yet fully repaired. A lot of
people are not in homes----
Chairman Chaffetz. A lot.
Governor Edwards. Yes.
Chairman Chaffetz. A lot. What does that mean?
Governor Edwards. Well, you know, it means a great number.
It means too many.
Chairman Chaffetz. Come on, Governor. Seriously.
Mr. Fenton, what's your estimate?
Mr. Fenton. If--I believe 4,500 people staying right now in
mobile homes. You have less than 2,000 that we're providing
rental assistance to right now. You have the 250 the Governor
talked about that are still in our hotel program, and then I
believe there is some population that's still with friends and
families. And that's the population that we will get a better
handle on as we start doing case management with individuals
that still have housing issues that we're going to work with
them to figure out what assistance they need to ultimately move
back into their homes.
Chairman Chaffetz. Mr. Harrell, what--tell me what it's
like right now.
Mr. Harrell. Well, let's talk about the number of folks
that are still not in their home. Let's go back to number one
on my testimony: information sharing. I don't have a clue. I
want to know how many. I want to know where they stand. FEMA is
out doing the assessments with all their teams. They're telling
me they're doing great things. I know nothing about it because
they will not share with me.
It is our citizens. It's my responsibility to make sure
they're taken care of, but we're out of the loop. I can't tell
you how many. I wish I could.
Chairman Chaffetz. Okay. Mr. Fenton, why don't you tell
him?
Mr. Fenton. Well, we can't share specific information on
individuals due to Freedom of Information----
Chairman Chaffetz. What do you mean Freedom----
Mr. Fenton. I mean, not Freedom. With regard to their
personal information, and we can't share their personal
information and their specific status. However, through the
case management----
Chairman Chaffetz. Why not? Why not?
Mr. Fenton. Because it's personal information, and we can't
go ahead and give that----
Chairman Chaffetz. Well, I'm not suggesting you print it in
the paper.
Mr. Harrell?
Mr. Harrell. If we can't do it on individual assistance, is
what he's saying, however, when we do the Hazard Mitigation
Grant Program and do elevations and acquisitions, they send a
list with the allocation and say, ``This is the folks that
qualify for the program,'' their name, their address, their
phone number. We have to process every bit of their private
information. So what is the difference in the Hazard Mitigation
Grant Program after the storm and not letting me have it during
the disaster, where we can maybe get it to private nonprofit
groups that maybe could help these citizens a little bit more?
Chairman Chaffetz. Okay. I've gone well past my time. We've
got to continue to explore that.
Mr. Fenton, go ahead.
Mr. Fenton. I meant to say Privacy Act. I'm sorry.
Chairman Chaffetz. That's fine. I understand.
All right. Let's now recognize the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Cartwright.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Governor Edwards, we're here talking about the historic
flooding that hit Louisiana and the Baton Rouge community in
August 2016. Congress appropriated about $437 million on
September 29, 2016, for the victims of the flooding in
Louisiana.
This committee, the Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, has received a letter from the Trump administration,
dated February 14, 2017, from the General Deputy Assistant
Secretary of HUD commending you and the State of Louisiana on
your quick work in developing an action plan on how to use
those funds. The letter states, and I'm going to quote: ``The
Department would like to commend the State for its commitment
to increasing the speed of recovery. This is evidenced by the
historically fast action plan submission,'' unquote.
Now, Governor Edwards, I want to ask you: How long did it
take you to submit that action plan that you were commended
for?
Governor Edwards. Well, it took us 17 days after the
Federal Register notice went out to submit that action plan.
And this ties back in with some of the information and
questions we got earlier today. There have been two
appropriations that total $1.6 billion. Both action plans were
submitted, the first one 145 days ahead of the deadline and the
second one 8 weeks ahead of the deadline. And the money
actually became obligated yesterday when HUD signed and
completed the execution of the grant agreement. The money is
not yet available because the line of credit has not yet been
established. That typically happens several days, maybe a week
or two, after the grant agreement, which answers the question
of the chairman and others as to why none of the $1.6 billion
has yet reached homeowners; it has not been available.
But if you look, it is historically fast. In fact, the
timeline associated with this said the $438 million would
typically be available in May. It was available--it should be
available much sooner than that. And in terms of the second
appropriation, it would be July. But it was folded into the
grant agreement with the first appropriation and should be
available much, much sooner than that.
And I'd also point out that the other grantee States in the
September appropriation have yet to submit their first action
plan.
Mr. Cartwright. Well, all right. So, not to put too fine a
point on it, while your actions have been very quick, it's
obvious that you've been frustrated by the State's inability to
distribute those funds. And, again, would you explain for us
what obstacles your State has faced in distributing this money
to the victims of the flooding?
Governor Edwards. Well, in that way, I share those
frustrations with you and the chairman and others, and nobody's
more frustrated than the homeowners in Louisiana. But to say
that the State was delaying or dilatory in the way that we
approached this would not be true, as evidenced by the letter
we got from HUD, for example, that called our work historically
fast. But there is a huge bureaucracy that still has to be
negotiated. There are lots of hurdles that you have to overcome
and obstacles you have to go through in order to access the
funding, but we are in the position now with the money finally
obligated yesterday, on Monday of next week, we're actually
going to stand up the program in terms of a call center and a
survey that will go out to the affected homeowners and should
be able to proceed without delay going forward. And that is the
good news.
We still have about a billion dollars of unmet need on the
housing piece alone, which we're hoping some or all of that
will be appropriated in the next continuing resolution.
Mr. Cartwright. Governor, did the State of Louisiana have
the resources to front this money and then seek reimbursement
from the Federal Government later?
Governor Edwards. No. I wish we had. My predecessor left me
with a $2 billion State general fund deficit for the current
fiscal year, and the budget is more than tight. We certainly
did not.
Mr. Cartwright. Well, Governor Edwards, I commend you and
the State of Louisiana for taking charge of the lengthy process
of seeking disaster aid for the Baton Rouge community. Your
administration acted swiftly and decisively. We in Congress
really ought to take a page out of your book and focus on
making processes faster here in Washington as well. Thank you
very much.
Governor Edwards. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Cartwright. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
Meadows.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Governor, I'm confused. You are there pointing the finger
at someone else, and you can't answer the very basic question
of how many people are not back in their homes, and you're
somehow pointing towards a previous administration on your
inability to answer even the very basics of questions,
Governor? How is that?
Governor Edwards. I think the comment I made about the
previous administration had to do with----
Mr. Meadows. So let me ask about this administration. Why
did you cancel a $250 million flood recovery contract just a
few days ago?
Governor Edwards. We didn't issue the contract. We pulled--
--
Mr. Meadows. Why did you cancel it?
Governor Edwards. We didn't cancel it.
Mr. Meadows. Well, according to my documents, that you
canceled that on March the 16th, 2017, and you basically--
because Mr. Bankston had an opinion that it needed to be
canceled.
Governor Edwards. Well, there was no contract issued. We
pulled back the RFP. We reissued the--we started the process
over again.
Mr. Meadows. Why did you get rid of that particular vendor?
Because what I understand is, is they had submitted a proposal,
it was going forward, and one person, Larry Bankston, somehow
said that there was a problem there, Governor.
Governor Edwards. Well, I think that's inaccurate. The
licensing contract board voted to adopt that opinion as its
own. At that point in time, the first two finishers in----
Mr. Meadows. Does Mr. Bankston's son work for a competing
contractor in that?
Governor Edwards. You know, I've heard that. I'm not
certain.
Mr. Meadows. So how can you be so certain about some
aspects of this, Governor, and yet seem to have no recollection
on the facts and the questions that we have to ask here this
morning?
Governor Edwards. Well, first of all, I think I had a
pretty good handle on the facts and----
Mr. Meadows. So how many people are displaced?
Governor Edwards. Well, I've answered that particular
question as best I can.
Mr. Meadows. No. Well, you haven't answered it. You said
you don't know.
Governor Edwards. I said as best I can this morning, I've
answered it for you, Congressman.
Mr. Meadows. So were you surprised that you were going to
be testifying here this morning?
Governor Edwards. No, sir.
Mr. Meadows. Then why would you not have the--I mean, we're
talking about real people's lives here, Governor. And if you
have a compassionate bone in your body, wouldn't you think that
you would know the number of people that have been affected by
this?
Governor Edwards. I know the number of people who have been
affected, Congressman.
Mr. Meadows. Still.
Governor Edwards. The question is how many people are out
of their homes today. And we don't have any information where
we can roll that up and know how many people--we know how many
are, obviously, in manufactured housing units; we know the 250
who are in----
Mr. Meadows. So do you believe that you are without blame
of any of the responsibility of getting people in proper
housing in the appropriate manner, that you are completely
blameless in all this, Governor?
Governor Edwards. I would never say that I'm completely
blameless. And, in fact, I said we've learned lessons; we could
do things better. And hopefully there----
Mr. Meadows. But you were sitting there comparing your
norms to historical norms.
Governor Edwards. Well, I was quoting a letter that----
Mr. Meadows. And sometimes when you compare to historically
bad things, that doesn't mean we're making much progress.
Governor Edwards. Congressman, I was quoting a letter that
came from HUD that said we were historically fast in the State
action plan submission and approval. That's a fact.
Mr. Meadows. All right. Well, we want more information on
exactly why this RFP was rescinded and if there was a conflict
of interest, because some of our information would indicate
that there might have been. And I'm not asking you. I'm asking
you to get back to this committee to help illuminate that
particular idea, because if there's a conflict of interest
because of bidding improprieties, that's a major concern to
this Oversight Committee. Wouldn't you agree it should be?
Governor Edwards. Well, it should be if that happened. The
RFP was pulled back----
Mr. Meadows. So you're saying it didn't happen?
Governor Edwards. I said ``if that happened.'' I didn't say
whether it did one way or the other.
Mr. Meadows. All right. But you'll find out and get back to
this committee?
Governor Edwards. Sure. We will find out----
Mr. Meadows. Okay. Thank you. Let me go out a little bit
further, because I'm out of time.
Mr. Fenton, let me tell you: I have a good relationship
with FEMA. We've had major storms of North Carolina. I love my
FEMA people. But let me tell you: Something I saw today just
stinks to the core. We've got emails that would suggest that
the number one priority that FEMA had was a political
motivation prior to an election that says, and I quote: We have
no way to predict what news will--this will do to our operation
and congressional offices will use prior to an election.
Wouldn't you think the major component for FEMA would be to
get people in housing and make sure that that housing is safe,
and it has nothing to do with political consequences?
Mr. Fenton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Meadows. All right. Well, let me go even further,
because that was troubling enough, but this is extremely
troubling: a FEMA document where it talks about the number one
priority for FEMA was negative publicity. Should that be the
number one priority?
Mr. Fenton. No, sir.
Mr. Meadows. All right. So let me show you what the lowest
priority was, and this is from your document. And this is very,
very troubling, because the lowest priority, tier 3 is what you
have, which it says, ``lowest priority,'' and it has to do with
mobile home units issues.
It says: Status, we have an applicant calling stating that
they have a 2-year-old special needs child who has desperate
need for surgery but can't get surgery until they have a stable
living situation instead of their 30-foot camper. The child is
very sick, and they have nowhere to go at this point, and they
need--an MHU is needed as soon as possible.
And you had it as a low priority, tier 3? What in the world
could have put this as a low priority?
Mr. Fenton. Sir, my priority is survivors. And I don't know
where that document came from, but I'm going to find out after
this, and I'll make sure that we change the--whoever wrote its
priorities.
Mr. Meadows. I would suggest that we quit looking at the
political motivations and start taking care of people.
And I'll yield back.
Mr. Fenton. I concur.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
We'll now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Fenton, my experiences with FEMA have
been very good, as the gentleman from North Carolina. And I
assume that that is not your position, that low priority
situation there, because all of my dealings, I've found them to
be very responsive.
Mr. Fenton. No, sir.
Mr. Cummings. And--hello?
Mr. Fenton. No, sir. That's--my priority is survivors. My
priority is not that document. I don't know where that document
came from, but I'll resolve it when I get the document and I
get back to my office.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you. Yes, sir.
On October 25, 2016, Everett Wilson was found dead in his
housing unit because it turned into an oven due to a broken
thermostat that blew heat nonstop. He was 84 years old, blind,
and served our country in the Air Force, a veteran. What we
don't know is why Mr. Wilson's broken thermostat was never
fixed.
As part of our investigation, our staff spoke several times
with Mr. Wilson's caretaker. She told us that, in the weeks
leading up to Mr. Wilson's death, she repeatedly called for
maintenance help. In response, she says a maintenance person
was dispatched to Mr. Wilson's unit, but he said he was not
qualified to fix HVAC systems and had no one else--and that no
one else ever came.
Mr. Boone, according to your written testimony, and I
quote, it says: ``FEMA contracted with CB&I Federal services to
transport, install, and maintain mobile housing units for
approved disaster victims,'' end of quote. Is that right.
Admiral Boone. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Wilson's unit was one of those units that
you were contracted to transport, install, and maintain. Is
that right?
Admiral Boone. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Your attorney sent a letter to the committee
on March 29, 2017, and it stated, and I quote: ``The
maintenance call logs included for this production reflect the
fact that there was not a single call made to a call center
regarding the trailer on Lot 5, nor were there any calls
associated with the name of the applicant.''
Are you telling us today under oath that your company never
received a single call from Mr. Wilson's unit, the veteran that
I just talked about, the one who died because he roasted to
death, I guess, or do you believe that it's possible that your
company did receive a call that may not have been properly
logged?
Admiral Boone. We----
Mr. Cummings. It doesn't sound like you're getting all the
calls, as I stated a little earlier. Go ahead. I'm listening.
Admiral Boone. What you said is correct. We never received
a call on either his unit, Lot 15, or anything referencing Mr.
Wilson's name.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. Our staff reviewed the maintenance call
logs, and there were numerous errors in the weeks before Mr.
Wilson's death, including incomplete names, phone numbers, and
addresses. In the weeks right before Mr. Everett's death, our
staff found at least 25 work orders for heating and air-
conditioning issues. They sound a lot like what we heard from
Mr. Wilson's caretaker. They describe defective HVAC systems
and systems continuously blowing hot air. Two of these work
orders say that the technicians dispatched to the sites were
unable to perform the repairs and had to call for other
technicians to perform them. That sounds almost exactly like
what we heard from Mr. Wilson's caretaker.
Now, Mr. Boone, were you aware before October 26 that there
were issues with thermostats in some of these mobile units?
Admiral Boone. I was not aware of the numbers. It's not
uncommon to have system breakdowns, and so we do the
maintenance and repair as required.
Mr. Cummings. And you're based down there in Louisiana? Are
you based there?
Admiral Boone. I am based in Alexandria, Virginia.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. And so--but this is a big contract for
you. You've made a big deal of how you knew a lot of the people
and----
Admiral Boone. We have offices down there, yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. So do you feel that your company has any
responsibility here?
Admiral Boone. Directly related to Mr. Wilson's death, no,
sir. Obviously, some information's been presented here that we
need to look into.
Mr. Cummings. So you don't think there's anything you could
have done better?
Admiral Boone. We----
Mr. Cummings. Your company could have done better.
Admiral Boone. We did what was required by the contract.
We're interested in working with FEMA to see if there's any
patterns that could be improved.
Mr. Cummings. So you said you did what was required by the
contract, and an 84-year-old man is dead, and your company was
responsible for making sure his unit was operational, and you
don't even know that you're getting correspondence from below,
but you did nothing wrong? But he's dead. Dead.
Admiral Boone. Sir, I appreciate the seriousness of that,
absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Boone, do you commit to providing all the
documents that have been requested by the committee?
Admiral Boone. Have we provided?
Mr. Cummings. I said, do you commit to--apparently you told
us you had sent in a million. How many--I mean, do you have
many more that we need to--that we need to have access to?
Chairman Chaffetz. Will the gentleman yield for a second?
Mr. Cummings. Yes, of course.
Chairman Chaffetz. I want to follow up on what Mr.
Cummings--before we get to the document production, I want to
follow up on this for a second.
You gave yourself a--you said you're highly successful, Mr.
Boone. On January 4 of 2017, FEMA officials circulated an email
pointing out that you, the contractor, had a completion rate
for December of 10 percent--10 percent. How do you say you're
highly successful when only 10 percent of the maintenance calls
you actually complete?
Admiral Boone. Well, again, I haven't seen that document. I
haven't seen the context of that communication. I've never
seen----
Chairman Chaffetz. Mr. Fenton, is that true? Did FEMA put
that out that only 10 percent?
Mr. Fenton. I'm not aware of----
Chairman Chaffetz. Come on, guys. Get aware. The Governor
doesn't know how many people are displaced. You don't know how
many maintenance calls are being missed. You don't--you call
yourselves highly successful. The Governor gives himself a B-
plus. And maybe the reason you're not responding to all the
maintenance calls is because you put the wrong maintenance
number on the trailers. Correct? Correct?
Mr. Fenton. I'm not aware of----
Chairman Chaffetz. You're not aware of that either.
Mr. Fenton. No.
Chairman Chaffetz. You provided the documents to us. We
actually read them. Maybe you should read your documents. You
all together decided to combine one telephone number, ``Hey,
let's make this easier.'' Sounds good. Guess what? The sticker
you put on the trailers, wrong telephone number. No wonder
you're not getting any calls. You put the wrong telephone
number there. And then the people who still figured it out,
CB&I only responds to 10 percent of them.
Mr. Fenton. What I was referring to, as far as not knowing
the 10 percent in the specific letter you're looking at, when
we wrote to CB&I, we wrote in our letter that a concern of 33
percent of the calls have no response information. So that's
what I am aware of of the letter that we generated over there,
but I don't have specific knowledge of the email that you're
talking about.
Mr. Cummings. Let me----
Chairman Chaffetz. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. You know, the chairman and I have done a
number of things on a bipartisan basis, a lot, and one of the
things that we spent a lot of time on is the Secret Service.
And both of us agreed that we wanted excellence. We wanted high
standards. We wanted the elite of the elite. We wanted people
to be treated--we wanted Secret Service agents to treat their
jobs as if they were the most valuable jobs in the world and
that every single thing that they do is so very, very
important.
And I just think--I just--and I say that to say this, that
sometimes I think we in our country in certain areas are moving
towards a culture of mediocrity, but that mediocrity can cause
people to die and to suffer. And I've got to tell you:
Information is very important. I don't even know how you
operate without information, and adequate information, Mr.
Boone. And so I'm just--some kind of way, you got to get a
handle on this, or I don't see how you--how a company can
continue to function and really make money and stay in business
unless you have information and then unless you're operating to
a high--a very high standard.
With that, I'll yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
We'll now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Fenton, what does FEMA do with their excess mobile home
units?
Mr. Fenton. Some of them--depending on the condition, some
are retrofitted and brought back to the yard for future
deployments. Sometimes we go through the GSA excess schedule,
and GSA excesses them for us through their schedule. And in
some case----
Mr. Palmer. What does that mean? What does through the GSA
schedule? What does that mean?
Mr. Fenton. It means that we sell them at the location that
were there, that they're at, that it's----
Mr. Palmer. What's the average cost of one of these mobile
home units?
Mr. Fenton. I'm sorry? Again?
Mr. Palmer. What's the average cost of one of these mobile
home units?
Mr. Fenton. I believe the average cost is somewhere around
$60,000.
Mr. Palmer. And what is GSA selling them for?
Mr. Fenton. I don't know. It ranges.
Mr. Palmer. I'll tell you what they're selling them for.
They're under $11,000. Sounds like a pretty bad deal to me.
Let me ask you this: Are any of the used units offered to
State and local governments?
Mr. Fenton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Palmer. And how do you do that?
Mr. Fenton. Going through the GSA excess schedule. It goes
through a number of steps, where we look at purchasing, the
potential for--to go to States, local governments, nonprofits
eventually. So you go down that. It's in the GSA regulations of
how to access accountable property.
Mr. Palmer. How does GAS contact a State emergency
management agency? Could you--I mean----
Mr. Fenton. They put it out. There is a website----
Mr. Palmer. They post it on a website?
Mr. Fenton. Yeah. They post it. And typically, my
experience, having done this before, back in Region IX where
I'm from, is typically any time we're doing that, I make the
State emergency management--notify them where we're headed with
that.
Mr. Palmer. So, when you have excess mobile home units, you
contact GSA first?
Mr. Fenton. Yes. We contact GSA because that's the entity
within the government that then has the authority to excess
property either through sales or through eventually providing
it to States or local governments, yes, sir.
Mr. Palmer. So you don't contact the States to let them
know?
Mr. Fenton. I--personally there's communication that we
make them aware of it, but officially, GSA's the one that puts
out the information.
Mr. Palmer. Well, the committee heard from several States
this morning that they've been looking for mobile home units
for donation and have been told that you're unable to find any.
And just 2 weeks ago, GSA was selling 20 units at auction.
You know, I've been sitting here listening to the questions
and your responses, and one word keeps popping up: incompetent.
It's unbelievable. I mean, you got States looking for these
units. You got local governments looking for them. They can't
get any from FEMA. They're not getting them from GSA, but
you're selling units that average $60,000 or $70,000--and some
of them are a whole lot more than that--for $11,000, at a
terrific loss to the taxpayers. And, I mean, you guys look like
the gang that can't shoot straight.
Mr. Fenton. If I could answer, sir.
Mr. Palmer. You may if you can.
Mr. Fenton. Yeah. So we purchase them for $60,000. When
they get used, they're depreciated based on the amount of money
it takes to----
Mr. Palmer. You're selling some new units.
Mr. Fenton. I'm not aware of new units that we're selling,
sir.
Mr. Palmer. I looked it up while I was sitting here
listening to you. There are some listings for new units.
Mr. Fenton. Okay. Well, we take--what we do is we look at
the value that they're at, the cost to retrofit them, the cost
to bring them back to the yard that we would be at, and then
figure out the cost to sell them.
Mr. Palmer. Well, how do you respond to the fact that
States this morning, including the State of Alabama, contacted
the committee and said, ``We've not been able to get units''?
Mr. Fenton. We have to go through the process with GSA to
see if we could sell them first. If they're not--if no one
wants them on that market----
Mr. Palmer. Wait a minute. You have to see if you can sell
them first----
Mr. Fenton. Yes.
Mr. Palmer. --before you would donate them to the State?
Mr. Fenton. That's right. Yeah.
Mr. Palmer. And you can't offer--you can't give the State
the option to buy a unit? In.
Mr. Fenton. Yeah. The State can buy the unit, but it would
be through that same process. Just recently I did a mobile home
program in California where we ended up giving 70 mobile homes
to the State of California. So we----
Mr. Palmer. Say that again.
Mr. Fenton. I said back in my region, Region IX, before
being Acting Administrator for the last couple of months, I had
a mobile home program in California from the fires, and we
ended up providing 70 mobile homes in California in that event.
So, in that event, after we went through the mobile home
program and we had mobile homes returned and we had excess that
we ordered, we went ahead and, rather than ship them back to
Selma, we went ahead and provided them to the State of
California, which were used on another fire through the State.
Mr. Palmer. Well, again, listening to the testimony this
morning, it's disturbing to me, Mr. Chairman, that a Federal
agency has failed in so many respects. And I think maybe we
need to look at this process, we need to make some corrections
and see if we can't be a little bit more responsible, well,
actually, a lot more responsive to the State and local
governments when they have needs like this.
I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
We'll now recognize the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr.
Graves.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to thank you and Ranking Member Cummings for your
time and effort here on this flood. This is not something that
is just relegated to Louisiana. This, unfortunately, is a flood
disaster that is going to have repercussions around the country
on many folks if we allow this type of incompetence to
continue. This is not the first flood, yet in many instances,
it appears that some of the reactions to this makes it look
like this is the first disaster we've ever seen as a country,
and it's awful.
Mr. Fenton, I'm not sure what--Administrator Fenton, I'm
not sure what grade you give FEMA. I've ridden out disasters
with you all before. The performance I've seen here is one of
the worst, unfortunately, one of the worst I've ever seen, and
I think it absolutely has exacerbated the impact on the flood
victims.
Specifically, when you look at what happened after the
flood, community members came together, and, I mean, literally,
I watched people give their shirts off their backs because
people had just wet clothes, because they came out in a boat or
whatever else, literally took the shirt off their back,
literally took food out of their freezer, literally housed
strangers in their homes, businesses, churches, elsewhere. This
disaster would have been so much worse if it were not for the
amazing people that came together to rescue one another and to
help one another recover. And, unfortunately, when FEMA came
in, we saw an abrupt halting of that progress and restoration
following this flood. And, unfortunately, that's continuing
today.
Let me go back and clarify a few things. Governor, you and
I, I think, are on different pages in regard to the timing on
some of this stuff, and I want to make sure we get that sorted
out. I looked on your website, and I see where on--let's see.
It looks like your first post in regard to the flood is on
August 12, and it looks like GOHSEP's first post on the flood
is on August 19. No. Excuse me. August 16, which was, again, in
both cases, after the flood.
Number two, there were about 20 watches, warnings, and
other things posted by the National Weather Service prior to
the flood in regard to--in regard to the warnings that the
flood was coming. I actually got so frustrated, that I spent
over an hour sitting in my office going through all the river
reports and everything that were out there, and while there was
a lapse between when I sent the email and it actually got
posted up on our Facebook, I was warning people that this was
going to far exceed the 1983 flood and that folks needed to
evacuate or be prepared for those flooding conditions. And this
was before the flood, obviously. And so there was ample
information out there.
But a few things. Now, the contractor that you're hiring
right now, that contractor is going to be responsible for
financial controls and procurement and disbursing money and
things along that line. Is that accurate?
Governor Edwards. On the----
Mr. Graves. The contract. You're going through a
solicitation process right now.
Governor Edwards. The CDBG.
Mr. Graves. Yes, sir. I'm sorry.
Governor Edwards. Yeah. I'm sorry. And by the way, I don't
believe I ever said there were no forecasts of heavy rains.
There was nothing on the order of magnitude of 30 inches that
were forecast. In fact, the best we could tell, it was--10
inches was the most that they had forecast came in ahead of
time.
Mr. Graves. I don't remember the exact inches that they
predicted, but they clearly predicted it was going to be beyond
the 1983 flood, and so I just--but we can move on from there.
So answer me, on the CDBG contract, am I correct in that
financial controls, procurement, disbursing of funds and things
along those lines?
Governor Edwards. We were--the contractor--the process
we're under right now is to select a program manager. Yes, sir.
Mr. Graves. And under the solicitation that I saw, it
appears they're responsible for financial controls.
Governor Edwards. Yes.
Mr. Graves. Okay. Because I just wanted to make note that,
in the Federal Register notice that was published on November
21, it actually says that the grantee has to submit
certification documentation providing the basis that the
grantee has sufficient financial controls and procurement
process, and established adequate procedures to prevent
duplication of benefits and things along those lines. So the
fact that a contractor is not in place now does potentially
impede some of that progress.
Number two, when we met on August 19, I suggested to you
then that you go ahead and hire a program management contractor
and you begin collecting data from flood victims and others, so
we're ready with this implementation plan. I further suggested
that you review the Federal Register notice from both the South
Carolina flood and the West Virginia flood. I might have
mentioned a third one, but I know I mentioned those two floods,
because I expected that there would be little to no difference
between the Federal Register notice that was published on
November 21 and the previous notices that were published
several months before our flood. And in reality, in looking at
the notices, that's the case. They're virtually no differences;
just very minor differences that wouldn't have had any impact
on an action plan.
And as a matter of fact, you stated earlier that it was 17
days after that plan, but as I recall, I think you actually
submitted your action plan on January 3 for the November 21
notice. And also I want to make note that the funds were
actually appropriated, I think it was around September 30. It
was the end of September.
And so if you had simply hired a contractor back in August,
if you had--if you had collected the information, if you had
reviewed the previous Federal Register notices, you could have
submitted a plan even before this November 21 deadline because
every place in here--you can see the several highlights in
here--every place in here, it actually says that the
certification documentation submitted within 60 days of this
effective date of notice or when the grantee submission of its
action plan, whichever is earlier, and so clearly that could
have happened before.
And then the other thing, you keep saying that the--that
the State is in no way delaying the execution of these funds or
disbursement of these funds to flood victims. There's not a
contractor in place. There's not a mechanism to disburse funds.
Governor, look, you and I represent the same people. And I
was very concerned on Friday when you suggested that I was
doing this for politics. We represent the same people,
Governor. And I'm going around meeting with these people, who
are literally living in tents, living in uninsulated homes,
don't have their businesses opened up. Livingston Parrish has
an article in the paper talking about the number of people that
aren't reapplying for business licenses. I don't have any
desire other than to get people back in their homes, and I'm
simply venting that frustration from them.
Do you care to respond?
Governor Edwards. I'm happy--I'm certainly happy to
respond. First of all, the submission of the State action plan
for the first $438 million appropriation was historically fast.
And we can look and say, ``You could have possibly done this.''
The fact of the matter is it was historically fast.
The second submission was even faster and, in fact, fast
enough that the grant agreement included both of those
appropriations, but that money is still not yet available. The
money became obligated yesterday, Congressman----
Mr. Graves. Governor, you had Mr. Cartwright earlier cite
the February 14 letter. This approved the first $438 million.
If a contractor was in place, the funds could have been
distributed based on the $438 million. The State made----
Governor Edwards. That is not true, Congressman. That is
not true. You cannot distribute money before you have it. We
don't have it because the grant agreement----
Mr. Graves. Because you submitted an amendment and told
them to combine the December and September appropriations,
which delayed it, Governor.
Governor Edwards. Which is also not true. We didn't tell
anybody to combine it. We were asked by HUD to combine the two.
Once we got the second action plan submitted so quickly as an
amendment to the first one, they believed it made sense to
combine the two. We said we're okay doing that but not if the
first appropriation is delayed, but by speeding up the
availability of the second appropriation, which is exactly what
happened. That first appropriation, under the original
timeline, wasn't going to be available until sometime in May.
We executed the grant agreement on it this past Friday. It also
includes the second appropriation. So now we have the $1.6
billion available all at one time, which is going to be very
helpful to address one of your earlier concerns that I share
about low to moderate income and the percentage of homeowners
that we're going to be able to help beyond that category.
But it's historically fast. The money is not yet available.
There is nothing we could have done before today that would
have made the money available to put into homeowners' homes in
terms of repairs before the line of credit is established.
Mr. Graves. Governor, it says, ``whichever is earlier.'' It
says it all over the notice, ``whichever is earlier.'' You
didn't have to wait for this. You could have based it upon the
previous Federal Register notices, which I suggested to you
back in August. And to say that the funds were not delayed as a
result of the decision to combine, that's just not true. It's
not. The notice is here. You would have had a line of credit
for $438 million that you could have begun distributing.
There's not a contract in place, and there's still not one in
place. And when the line of credit's ultimately available,
you're not going to have a contractor in place or a
disbursement mechanism in place to get the money out the door.
Governor Edwards. Well, first of all, I don't know that we
know that yet because it isn't established. And it could happen
at any time, as I understand, over the next week or 2 weeks,
potentially 3 weeks, but----
Mr. Graves. But you don't have a contractor.
Governor Edwards. But there is nothing that we could have
done that would have made that money available any faster.
Chairman Chaffetz. Congressman Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Yes. Thanks.
Governor, I just want to--sorry we're going back and forth
here. I have just one question. As I'm listening to you, it
sounds like what you're saying is that you did everything you
could to get the money as fast as you could, and the
combination allowed you to do that. Is that right?
Governor Edwards. Well, it does. And the other thing that I
would like to point out again, the other State grantees that
were appropriated money in September have not submitted their
first action plan. We've actually submitted two. And the second
appropriation was then consolidated with the first one in terms
of that grant agreement so that we executed the grant agreement
last Friday. HUD executed it yesterday, and so, for the first
time, the money is actually obligated.
But if you look at the normal timeline associated with
this, Congressman Cummings, that first appropriation would not
have been available in a line of credit until sometime in May.
Mr. Cummings. Okay.
Governor Edwards. We're going to beat that deadline, and at
the same time, we will have the full $1.6 billion, not just the
first $438 million.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Chairman Chaffetz. I'll now recognize myself.
Governor, to say that this is historically fast, I mean,
come on. It's April. This thing happened in August of last
year. If you have documentation from HUD suggesting that you do
something--to combine or that something that would slow this
down or--please provide that to this committee.
I think it's a combination of failure at the State level,
but I think there's also a lot of failure at the Federal
Government level, and I want to try to--and I know Mr. Cummings
and others feel this way too. This is--as Congressman Graves
was talking about, this is not the first time these things have
happened.
Mr. Fenton, Congress appropriates how much money to you on
an annual basis? Just an annual appropriation.
Mr. Fenton. Including DRF and--so just for the Disaster
Relief Fund, I think it's $7 billion, $8 billion a year, just
the Disaster Relief Fund, and then plus we have money for flood
insurance, which is mostly through the policies, and then
another couple billion on top of that. So----
Chairman Chaffetz. So you're about $15 billion?
Mr. Fenton. Yeah, about $15 billion when you add it all up,
all the different----
Chairman Chaffetz. And I got the tell you: $15 billion a
year to do what? Be ready if there's a disaster. Were you ready
for this one?
Mr. Fenton. Well, we always can do better. And I think
you've pointed out a number of areas where we can do better. I
think what happens in the bigger events, in the large--these
large events, whether it be this event in Louisiana or Katrina,
that it maximizes our capability and the throughput that we
have. So, when our throughput for mobile homes is about--I
think, on average, the best I saw was about 41 a day--it
doesn't meet the huge numbers when you have 4,500 people,
ultimately, that needed mobile homes.
Chairman Chaffetz. Okay. So let's put that chart back up on
the mobile housing units. This event, we have this chart. I
mean, those numbers don't ramp up until the end of the year.
And they don't even get close to what we need until February.
Mr. Fenton. So our focus immediately is to put people in
rental properties, if available, into hotels, and then start to
determine--and we're also working the TSA program with the
shelter--the STEP program with the Governor. And so we're
getting people into safe, habitable locations outside the
shelters, and then we start working through those individuals
to determine their requirements, and at the same time start----
Chairman Chaffetz. If you think--if you think you can do,
you said, I think, 41 a day?
Mr. Fenton. Forty-one a day with the infrastructure all
being intact: power, water, sewer----
Chairman Chaffetz. In perfect conditions. I mean----
Mr. Fenton. So 41 a day is what we got up to. Right? It
takes some time----
Chairman Chaffetz. It took you, like, 6 months to get to
that point.
Mr. Fenton. It takes some time to get the infrastructure
and resources there in order to meet that level.
Chairman Chaffetz. You can take down the graphic.
If we paid you nothing, and we just said, ``Hey, Louisiana,
here's a bunch of money; go help fight this disaster,'' Mr.
Harrell, what do you think would have happened?
Mr. Harrell. Quite honestly, I probably would have failed
miserably, but at least it would have been me failing instead
of pointing fingers at someone else. I would have liked to have
the opportunity to do that, any day of the week, because I feel
like I failed the people of Livingston Parish on this disaster,
and that's strictly due to the inability of FEMA to work as a
team. And I'm going to go back and throw something else in. If
you'll look at your National Response Framework, if you look at
your NIMS management system, it all says that we work as a team
at the lowest possible level. It's not a team approach when it
comes to FEMA. So, yes, give me a block grant; let me handle my
people.
Chairman Chaffetz. You know, that's what's sad about this,
is there are a lot of good men and women serving in all of the
organizations. You go talk to the person who is down there on
the ground in Louisiana, trying to do things, working for FEMA;
I think their hearts are in the right place.
But I don't think any of you could look at this and assess
it as a B-plus, or highly successful, anything other than a
total and utter failure from top to bottom.
We're not serving the people that--they pay the taxes. They
do what they're supposed to do, and they're on the receiving
end of something that is so devastating, it is--you can't even
fathom. I don't understand and nor should we ever tolerate such
a lack of response.
I want to read--this is, again, it's an internal FEMA
document. This document--and the print is like 2 font here. But
this is January 2017. This is regarding CB&I. It says: ``For
the month of December 2016, the report indicates that the
contractor received 1,980 maintenance calls. The contractor
only completed 198 of those. Thus, 90 percent were not
complete.''
And, Mr. Boone, you come here and tell us you were highly
successful. I just don't understand the disconnect. It's not
even close.
Let me read another. This is the long term. That was just
for the short term. Long term: ``Repeat caller complaints that
go without maintenance attention are numerous.'' Then it says
there are 1,655 out of 4,793 issues not completed, which is
only a completion rate of 35 percent. It's not as if we haven't
ponied up the money. You're getting big contracts, but I don't
understand, Mr. Boone, how you're not aware of this.
And, Mr. Fenton, if you're not aware of this, who is?
Mr. Fenton. Upon coming into this job January 20, I went
down there, and I asked those questions. At that time when I
was down there in February----
Chairman Chaffetz. When did you--how long have you been
with FEMA?
Mr. Fenton. I have been with FEMA 20 year, sir.
Chairman Chaffetz. What was your job before this?
Mr. Fenton. I was the Regional Administrator for the West
Coast and still am.
Chairman Chaffetz. And still you don't have--because you
are acting?
Mr. Fenton. I'm the Acting Administrator right now, but----
Chairman Chaffetz. Sorry. Keep going. Keep going.
Mr. Fenton. So I'm the--I've been with FEMA 20 years: 13
years in Region IX; 6 years in D.C.; went back there for the
last 2 years as now the Regional Administrator. I got sent here
to be the Acting Administrator starting January 20. I've been
here since January 20 as Acting Administrator, sir.
Chairman Chaffetz. I tell you: You've got your hands full
because we've seen this movie before, and we've seen it in
Louisiana, and we've failed again. The Federal Government fell
on its face, and the State didn't do much to help either. As
I'm telling you, to not be prepared in April for a contract to
start putting stuff out the door, I just can't even imagine
what these people are dealing with in terms--let's go to
Congressman Johnson. He's also joining us from Louisiana.
Congressman, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It really was an epic failure, Federal and State
government.
I take issue with what you said, Mr. Harrell. I don't think
it was your failure. I think it was at higher levels.
And, you know, the sad thing about it is, in Louisiana, we
do recovery really well because we have so much experience with
it. I mean, sadly, as you know, just in your administration,
Governor, there's been a series of tragedies and disasters, but
the reason we do recovery well in Louisiana is not because of
the Federal or State government; it's because of our people,
because they are very resourceful. They're survivors.
Communities work together. Neighbors ban together. Citizens go
into action. They know what to do. They take care of one
another, often in spite of the government, not because of it.
Governor, in January, you described the Shelter at Home
Program as being very successful. And there's been a lot of
discussion about this today, and you gentlemen have taken some
heat.
Is it--do you still stand by that statement? Do you still
say that our Shelter at Home is a model that's very successful?
Governor Edwards. I believe that it served its purpose by
and large, and it's successful in the sense that in--I think it
was a little over 3 months, the Shelter at Home Program was
stood up, and, actually, 10,000 homes in just a little over 3
months actually received those repairs to make their homes
safe, habitable, and secure so people can go back home. That
was the only option we had then. It's--and, by the way, if a
similar disaster hits us today, it's the only option we have
today because you don't have the TSA available in terms of
motels and hotels. The rental assistance isn't available
because you don't have the units there, the capacity. And MHUs
are too slow coming and actually cost too much. But if you look
at the fact that 3,000 families were in hotels, we paid $46
million for that, and we did--actually, got 11,000 homes done
under Shelter at Home. And the most important thing was those
individuals were able to stay in their communities where they
live and work so that businesses had employees and customers;
schools had students and teachers; churches had parishioners on
Sunday.
And so, given the concerns that we have, I would say that
it was largely successful. Certainly not perfect. We would much
rather have engaged in much better repairs in terms of not
being limited to temporary repairs, for example.
Mr. Johnson. Well, and part of the purpose of this exercise
is so that we can all learn by the mistakes and make
improvements so, Heaven forbid, something of this scale happens
again, we can do it better.
So, you know, I'm not--I don't know that everybody agrees
with the assessment, Governor, and I'm basing this in part on
this past December, you know, the State surveyed over 2,000
people that were involved, about a fifth of the homeowners that
were using the Shelter at Home Program. And The Advocate had a
report that said 46 percent of them, almost half, said they
would not return home at that point, and they were citing
shoddy repairs and questionable living conditions.
So, I mean, I know that there's been some improvements
since that time, but, still, I think we've got a real
perception problem, and I'm not sure how to overcome that.
There's also numerous reports of infamous overbilling for
services and products and even charges for work that was never
done. I know all of you are aware of that.
My question is--and my real concern always--is about good
stewardship of taxpayer dollars and wise use of that and
eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse. So, apparently, there's a
lot of fraud involved in this.
What happens if the State receives a complaint about fraud
of that magnitude, you know, for example, billing for charges
that were never provided, services?
Governor Edwards. Well, at that point in time, if the State
receives that information, we would call in AECOM, find out the
specific contractor that engaged in the repairs on that
particular home, a look at the scope of work that was
authorized, the scope of work that was done, and the
inspection, the final inspection, to see if it matched up and
if the work was truly performed.
Mr. Johnson. How many outstanding cases of fraud against
the Shelter at Home Program are being investigated now? Do you
know?
Governor Edwards. As far as we know, there are no
outstanding allegations of fraud against the--the client--the
program. And I think the total number of complaints was in the
neighborhood of 300 out of 11,000. And those complaints weren't
about fraud, necessarily. Those were individuals who wanted a
scope of work that was greater than what was performed. Some of
it had to do with the workmanship, and a lot of times those
were conflated because people don't like the temporary nature
of the repairs that were made in many cases.
Mr. Johnson. I'm out of time, but just one last question
for FEMA.
Mr. Fenton, does FEMA provide direct oversight of the
Shelter at Home Program or the State equivalence thereof? I
mean, how does that--what does that look like in terms of
oversight?
Mr. Fenton. It's a grant through the State. We've worked
with them on the implementation plan and the checks and
balances within that. They talked to New York, got their
lessons learned from New York. We've looked at some past IG
audits on some of their recommendations, and the program is
running again as a pilot for the second time in Louisiana.
We provide a grant through our public assistance program.
So, eventually, there will be a project worksheet for this
through cost sharing, and we provided oversight of those
dollars going down to the State and ensure that they're doing
the work.
Mr. Johnson. This is the last question, and I'm just going
to ask you, for the record today--I'm sure this goes without
saying--but we have your absolute commitment that you're going
to improve these programs and make this better for the next
round, right?
Mr. Fenton. Well, definitely, 110 percent, sir. I've
already started, since coming on in January 20, the housing.
Some of that I talked about in my opening statement. I've
reached out to MIT and Lincoln Labs to get them, the academic
community, to take a look at what we're doing and give us,
maybe, an outside look at what we could do better. And we're
going to do a--we're going to invite industry in for Industry
Day because there's a much--there's multiple different
capabilities we could bring to the table. If we could find
something that's more agile, faster, but as safe, we will look
to do that.
Right now, the MHU, just because of the size, trying to put
it on individual lots represents a lot of challenges with
degraded infrastructure. And so it slows us down in being able
to meet the numbers that happen in this event.
So we need to go back to something that is more agile but
still safe. When we were in Katrina, we were using travel
trailers. And while they were more agile and faster, the safety
was a concern. So we need to find something in the middle that
meets the requirement during these big events, and we're
looking to make those improvements.
Mr. Johnson. Let's do it quickly. Thank you.
Mr. Fenton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Grothman. [Presiding.] Thank you.
We'll go to the ranking minority member, Congressman
Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Mr. Fenton, after Mr. Wilson's death, FEMA raised serious
concerns that CB&I was understaffed and disorganized. Senior
FEMA staff warned that CB&I failed to complete 90 percent of
its maintenance calls in the month of December. The contractor
failed to show up for 40 percent of the scheduled monthly
maintenance visits. FEMA characterized CB&I's performance
during this period as, quote, ``error prone and incomplete,''
end of quote.
Sir, can you please describe the concerns that FEMA had
with CB&I?
Mr. Fenton. Sir, since coming on January 20t and in my
meeting in February down at the joint field office, I asked a
number of questions because of concerns I've heard with regard
to the contract. There was a number of discussions that go on
in operations between individuals with regard to concerns,
emails that you guys have. Ultimately, it warranted a letter of
concern that we wrote to CB&I from our contractor to put in
writing those issues.
Since that letter of concern, I'm told, when I went down to
visit, that they have stepped up and that times have
significantly decreased. And last night, when I had discussion
with our contractor again and asked the questions, they were
pretty--they were--said that the relationship and the level of
work have increased the level, and everything is satisfactory
at this point.
Mr. Cummings. So, Mr. Boone, how do you respond to the
problems, the failures of your company? There were some
failures. Wouldn't you agree?
Admiral Boone. Those----
Mr. Cummings. The whole--okay. Go ahead.
Admiral Boone. Those issues that have been raised are new
to me. So, obviously, I need to sort through that and
understand the context of those issues.
If there are failures, we'll fix them. I think, as Mr.
Fenton has articulated, there was a letter of concern never
officially given to us. So it was slid across the table from
the contracting officer and shared in a brief moment with our
project manager. We aggressively addressed those concerns and
have performed, to our knowledge, in a very highly successful
way.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Well, let me just cite this very
quickly, and then we'll be ending the hearing very shortly.
On January 17, 2017, one of the residents in a manufactured
housing unit wrote to FEMA about a serious plumbing issue that
she had been trying to get resolved for a month. When she
called CB&I's maintenance line, she found that, and I quote,
``it basically is a help line--a help desk ticket center with
no calls back,'' end of quote.
She was so frustrated with CB&I's lack of response that her
husband rented a drain camera to prove that the sewer pipe had
burst and sent the pictures of the damaged pipe to CB&I. After
several more days of waiting, CB&I finally dispatched a
contractor to the unit.
She explained that the subcontractor, and I quote,
``assessed it, looked at our video, wrote up the paperwork,''
end quote, but then the technician left without fixing the
problem.
Mr. Boone, why didn't your company fix the problem? Is that
unusual?
Admiral Boone. No. We address those problems. So, again,
this is news to me, and I'll dig into it. But we have a
reputation of doing prompt and responsive work. So, obviously,
if this allegation is true, we have to get to the bottom of it.
Mr. Cummings. All right.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Chaffetz. [Presiding.] I recognize the gentleman
from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman.
Mr. Grothman. Yeah, Mr. Fenton, I'm going to kind of go
over some territory that was covered before. I had another
hearing at the time.
Each manufactured housing unit that you purchased cost
around $140 grand to install and maintain, correct?
Mr. Fenton. The full wraparound cost to put a manufactured
housing unit on an individual's property is $129 is what I'm
told, $149 if we have to put it on a different lot. That
includes the purchase of the unit, the hauling to the location,
the installation cost, and then eventually the deactivation.
Mr. Grothman. And some people would buy these on their own?
Mr. Fenton. Some people may buy them on their own. We, in
FEMA, buy them direct from six manufacturers.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. So you got a good deal, well, as you
could buy them in bulk?
Mr. Fenton. We're buying units that are from HUD regulated
plants. We're buying units that have extra retrofitting as far
as the frame. We put a fire suppression system in them and do a
lot of things above and beyond the normal models.
Mr. Grothman. Right. Right. Right. But, presumably, because
you're buying lots rather than if I just walked up and say I
wanted one, you're getting a better deal than somebody would
wind up if they just bought one of these, correct?
Mr. Fenton. I would think so. I think time plays into that.
You know, we're buying a lot of units in a very short duration,
and--and--so we're--but there's time and then there's the
number that we're buying.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. My notes here say that you turn around,
and after spending $140, $145 grand for these, you turn around
and sell for them $11 grand. Is that accurate?
Mr. Fenton. We are required to, if they--if it's not cost
effective to bring them back to our location, they can't be
retrofitted, then we go through the GSA excess property. By
statute, we're required to put it through there, and they sell
those units. And $11,000 is what I'm told that some of those
units fetch.
Mr. Grothman. Does that hit you as unusual?
Mr. Fenton. As far as?
Mr. Grothman. Odd? I mean, I would think that if you buy
something for $140 grand or $130 grand and, you know, 2 years
later you sell it for $11 grand, I would think that somebody
really screwed up. Do you have----
Mr. Fenton. Well, the unit itself is $60,000 and, then it's
been used now for some period of time. So you have to make
repairs to the unit, which is some sort of--which is some cost,
and then you've got to go ahead and move the unit back and
store it. So we take into account the cost to restore it back
to predisaster condition, the cost to move it, the cost to go
ahead and mothball it and sustain it versus the cost to sell it
onsite. And if it's more cost effective to sell it onsite,
we're going to choose that option versus exceeding that cost by
doing all the--three things that I said and doing more cost to
go ahead and move it back to a location, especially if it's not
usable again.
Mr. Grothman. Okay.
Mr. Fenton. And many of these are not usable after 18
months and after the travel that they've done already.
Mr. Grothman. You paid $140,000 a year for something that's
not usable after 16 months?
Mr. Fenton. $60,000 for the unit. The rest of the cost is
moving it. The rest of the cost is installation of that, the
water, sewer, gas hookups, and deactivation.
Mr. Grothman. Even $60,000. You mean, a year and a half
after you buy something for $60,000, it has been so ripped
apart that it's worth $10,000? And recently, staff here found
one listed on your auction site--or GSA's auction site--for
$2,500 bucks. Doesn't that--can you explain why the dramatic
decline in value for something that I would think should be
good for 30 or 40 years?
Mr. Fenton. All I know is that usually the long distances
they travel impact the frame of the unit. The use of it
underneath the conditions that we put them in impact that. And
so, therefore, we put them out on the fair market to get as
much as GSA can get for those units.
Mr. Grothman. How many--usually one family lives in these
things?
Mr. Fenton. Yes, one family usually.
Mr. Grothman. Well, I'll tell you this: If I was in this
situation like this and I needed housing for 2 years or
something, I would think if you'd--you rent an apartment
almost, I would think--you know, maybe not in Washington, D.C.,
obviously, but other places, you can get a fairly good
apartment for under $10,000 a year. Wouldn't it be more cost
effective if somebody is in a situation, say, for year and a
half, we are just giving you a check for $12,000, and you find
housing?
Mr. Fenton. We do provide rental assistance to them at the
fair market rental rate.
Mr. Grothman. I mean across the board. Rather than say, I'm
going to spend $150 grand for something I'm going to sell in a
year and a half for $10 grand--about, maybe $140 and $12, or
whatever--why don't we just across the board just say, ``Here,
family, here's a check for $15,000; you find an apartment''?
Mr. Fenton. I think we should look at many options to do
that. The case, though, is that if you want the individual to
stay within that community, and you want to re-establish that
community, if there's no resources available in that community
because we are providing rental assistance, we are providing
hotel assistance, and the reason why we're going to
manufactured homes is because there are--those other two
options are either not available or the individual wants to be
back to their home to make repairs.
So giving some of the grant is an option. We're glad to
look at that and discuss that as an option, but I'm not sure it
takes care of the issue.
Mr. Grothman. Well, my time is up. I'm just saying, you
know, wherever I am today, I find people that are driving the
half hour or 50 minutes to work. But thanks.
Chairman Chaffetz. I recognize Mr. Graves for 5 minutes.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to follow up on a few things.
One, Mr. Fenton, I--look, you inherited this mess. I know
that you've been out West and that you came in and, certainly,
there's been a lot of frustration aimed at you. But I know that
you weren't responsible for these decisions, and I just wanted
to make that clear. I know that you came in an acting role
after this, and a lot of the frustrations we had during the
peak of the flood were not your responsibility. Unfortunately,
the committee did invite Mr. Fugate to come testify at the last
hearing, and he did not come, and I just wanted to distinguish
that fact.
But one thing I want to reiterate, you cannot allow for
this type--these types of failures to continue in future
disasters, in this one and in future disasters. We are
revictimizing disaster victims; it's not okay.
Number two, we're fleecing taxpayers. The cost of these
trailers, whenever local trailers dealers--Mr. Fenton, one
thing I wanted to point out, Jason Ard, the Livingston Parish
sheriff, came to us and said, for $35,000, if I remember
correctly, per trailer, they can set up a trailer park for his
deputies, because they needed stability; he needed law
enforcement. I called the Secretary. I called the Deputy
Secretary. I tried Mr. Fugate several times; never heard back
from him. Had conference calls with a deputy and with the
Secretary about this, and repeatedly, they rejected it. In
turn, they instead paid $150 grand per trailer. Right now
Sheriff Yarborough I think is selling back some of those
trailers. Again, my number is ballpark, about $25,000 or a net
payment from FEMA or for the sheriff's office for $10,000.
Y'all are refusing to reimburse him. So you're opting to spend
$150,000 instead of $10,000. How do you go stand up in front of
taxpayers with a $20 trillion debt and defend those decisions?
Governor, I want to clarify or just make a statement on
Shelter at Home. I commend you for Shelter at Home. I tweeted
that day and said that that is an innovative approach, and I
like it because it helps get people back into their homes,
their communities, helps restore the tax base. And I know, Mr.
Harrell, President Layton Ricks, and I know we have we also
have the chairman of our Homeland Security Committee in the
senate, Bodi White, and the chairman of the Education
Committee, Senator Blade Morrish, and Representative Miguez
here. I know all these people care about people getting back
and restoring the community and the tax base and everything
back in their homes. I commend you.
But I also said the execution, it was going to be based on
execution. I think execution was a failure. You and I have
talked about the word ``temporary'' in the Stafford Act. We've
got to work with FEMA to change that. Because I think--once I
saw the parameters, it was absurd, and it just didn't make
sense. So--to move forward.
And what happened is we preempted, we prevented these flood
victims by having other housing options by doing Shelter at
Home in many cases. And that's unfortunate. People told me over
and over again, they couldn't get responses from contractors;
the work was substandard; and had they known what it would have
been like, they never would have opted for that.
Lastly, I've got a number of documents. I'm not going to go
back and forth with you here on arguing what the timelines are
and everything else. So what I'm going to do, is, Mr. Chairman,
I've got documents from HUD. I've got documents from the
Governor. I've got the Federal Register notice. I'm going
submit these for the record. The documents speak for
themselves, very clear in this case. And I ask unanimous
consent that those be included in the record.
Chairman Chaffetz. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Graves. And at the end of the day--and it doesn't
matter, you know, again, Mr. Harrell, Mr. Boone, Mr. Fenton,
Governor--this whole thing is about people. It's about people.
And the decisions that you have to make at the end of the day,
you need to be thinking about those where you can stand up in
front of people and defend the decisions that are being made.
And what ends up happening is that the line of decisions are
absolutely decisions that can't be defended.
I think about it all the time: I've got to defend this at a
townhall meeting, standing up at a townhall meeting and
defending it to constituents. And a lot of these decisions
simply can't be defended, whether it's the amount of time it's
taken from a September appropriation that's not going to get
out the door until probably May, or it's trailers that have
taken 6 months to get to people after this flood, or it's the
fleecing of taxpayers. It's absolutely unacceptable, and you
can't defend these actions.
And so people can say that this manual, this regulation,
whatever, those things--in the wake of a disaster, in the peak
of a disaster, you've got to do what's right. And over and over
again, I remember being in disasters, being in Unified Command
in the State of Louisiana, in some cases, you've got to say,
``I'm going to do what's right versus what this manual says,''
because no two disasters are the same; manuals in some cases
and regulations can't anticipate the unique conditions. And
FEMA gets so wrapped around the actual--watching the
inefficiencies there was infuriating, and, unfortunately, in
many cases, they are continuing on, and these people are being
revictimized.
And so, for the tens and thousands people that are still
displaced--tens of thousands that are still displaced today--we
need to do a better job getting them back into their
communities, and we need to make sure that none of this ever
happens again.
I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I now recognize Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I just want to submit a letter for the
record. Mr. Cartwright referred to this letter, dated February
14, 2017, from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the one complimenting the Governor. I wanted to--
--
Chairman Chaffetz. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Cummings. That's all.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman yields back.
As we close here, I want to thank you all for being here
and participating.
I think what Mr. Graves pointed out is a very good summary
of the problem and the situation that we have. I really do
commend the Livingston Parish sheriff, who took care of his
deputies, you know.
And you've got to take a good hard look, Mr. Fenton,
because here's the sheriff, whose got to take care of his
deputies, because he knows if he takes care of his deputies,
his deputies can help take care of other people. Somehow, some
way, he went out and bought things at $35,000 apiece. And you,
FEMA, are buying them at 150,000 and taking 6 months to do it.
Something dramatically wrong there.
Mr. Fenton. Yes, sir.
Chairman Chaffetz. Mr. Harrell, I want to give you the last
word here. You live there. You deal with this. You put your
heart and soul into this, I know. What are the closing
comments, things you want all of us to hear? And then we'll
close this hearing.
Mr. Harrell. Two words: FEMA reform. It's that simple. But
don't do it in Washington. Don't do it at the regional level.
Get it down to the State. Get it down to the local level. Let
us have input. We don't have it. We try to follow the guidance
that FEMA puts out on every document they have. We do it; FEMA
does not do it. That's all I'm asking: FEMA reform. It's that
simple.
I'd like to play a part in it. I think a lot of our
emergency managers across the country would like to play a part
in it. That's my goal.
Chairman Chaffetz. We hear you. Thank you. I appreciate you
doing that.
And for the men and women who suffered through that and
responded and helped their neighbors, God bless you.
Again, thank you for this hearing. It's been very
productive. The committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:00 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
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