[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
WEATHERING THE STORM:
IMPROVING HURRICANE RESILIENCY
THROUGH RESEARCH
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 22, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-26
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
36-506PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma,
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois Ranking Member
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon MO BROOKS, Alabama
AMI BERA, California, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania BRIAN BABIN, Texas
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
KENDRA HORN, Oklahoma RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
BRAD SHERMAN, California TROY BALDERSON, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
PAUL TONKO, New York JIM BAIRD, Indiana
BILL FOSTER, Illinois JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
DON BEYER, Virginia JENNIFFER GONZALEZ-COLON, Puerto
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida Rico
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois VACANCY
KATIE HILL, California
BEN McADAMS, Utah
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
------
Subcommittee on Environment
HON. LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas, Chairwoman
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas, Ranking
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania Member
PAUL TONKO, New York BRIAN BABIN, Texas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois JIM BAIRD, Indiana
BEN McADAMS, Utah JENNIFFER GONZALEZ-COLON, Puerto
DON BEYER, Virginia Rico
C O N T E N T S
July 22, 2019
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Lizzie Fletcher, Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 8
Written Statement............................................ 9
Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Subcommittee on
Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 10
Written Statement............................................ 11
Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 12
Witnesses:
Dr. Louis W. Uccellini, Assistant Administrator for Weather
Services, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and
Director, National Weather Service
Oral Statement............................................... 14
Written Statement............................................ 17
Dr. Hanadi Rifai, John and Rebecca Moores Professor,
Environmental Engineering Graduate Program; and Director,
Hurricane Resilience Research Institute, University of Houston
Oral Statement............................................... 29
Written Statement............................................ 33
Ms. Emily Grover-Kopec, Director of Insurance Practice, One
Concern, Inc.
Oral Statement............................................... 52
Written Statement............................................ 54
Mr. Jim Blackburn, Co-Director, Severe Storm Prediction,
Education and Evacuation from Disaster Center; and Professor,
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice
University
Oral Statement............................................... 62
Written Statement............................................ 64
Discussion....................................................... 85
Appendix I: Additional Material for the Record
Letter submitted by Representative Lizzie Fletcher, Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 108
WEATHERING THE STORM:
IMPROVING HURRICANE RESILIENCY
THROUGH RESEARCH
----------
MONDAY, JULY 22, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:14 p.m., at
Houston Community College, West Loop Campus Auditorium, 5601
West Loop South, Houston, Texas 77081, Hon. Lizzie Fletcher
[Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. This hearing will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at
any time.
The Chair would like to request unanimous consent for Ms.
Garcia and Ms. Jackson Lee to participate in today's hearing.
Without objection.
Good afternoon, and welcome to today's hearing entitled,
``Weathering the Storm: Improving Hurricane Resiliency through
Research.'' This hearing will follow the format that is
standard for the Committee's Science, Space, and Technology
hearings on Capitol Hill. First, I will give a 5-minute
statement on the topic of the hearing. Then Dr. Babin, the
senior-most minority Member on the Environment Subcommittee in
attendance here today, will have 5 minutes to give an opening
statement. After that, we will hear 5 minutes of oral testimony
from each of our expert witnesses. Then, starting with myself,
each Member will have 5 minutes to question the panel. We will
alternate back and forth between Democratic and Republican
Committee Members. If there is time, we will hold a second
round of questions.
Thank you for joining us at today's Subcommittee on
Environment field hearing. I would like to welcome our panel of
witnesses that includes two fellow Houstonians, Dr. Rifai and
Mr. Blackburn.
I'm glad we're able to hold this hearing in Houston today,
and I'm so pleased to welcome our witnesses and my colleagues
here in Houston. I thank Chairwoman Johnson, who will be
joining us shortly, for making this field hearing possible.
Here in Houston, we know the devastating effects that
hurricanes can bring, and we know the importance of preparing.
As a young girl, I was just a few blocks from where we're
sitting today in the house I grew up in when Hurricane Alicia
came through Houston and the eye of the storm passing right
over our heads.
In the years since, we have seen many storms here and
across the Gulf Coast. We know them by name: Rita, Ike, Harvey.
In fact, Texas is particularly vulnerable to hurricanes. The
Texas General Land Office has found that in the last 14 years
every coastal county in Texas has received at least one
hurricane disaster declaration.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey rewrote the continental U.S.
record for rainfall from a tropical cyclone. It was the second-
costliest hurricane in United States history behind only
Hurricane Katrina. At least 68 people died, as we know all too
well in this community, from the direct effects of the storm,
and it left an estimated $125 billion worth of damage in its
wake. We are still recovering.
We have watched in recent days as Hurricane Barry made its
way to the coast, predicted to dump 1 to 2 feet of rainwater
across Louisiana with storm surges along the Mississippi River.
Fortunately, the effects were not as severe as expected, but we
know that will not always be the case.
The science is clear: Hurricanes are becoming more frequent
and more intense. That means more storms like Harvey. And with
that knowledge it's time to expand the conversation beyond just
improving weather forecasts so that communities can prepare for
and recover from severe storms.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or
NOAA, defines coastal resilience as, quote, ``building the
ability of a community to bounce back after hazardous events
such as hurricanes, coastal storms, and flooding rather than
simply reacting to impacts.'' I know that my constituents and
Americans across the country want the Federal Government to do
more than simply react to storms.
Investing in research can facilitate the development of
evidence-based policies that address how our environment is
changing and how this change will affect society. We need not
only a better understanding of the conditions that generate
hurricanes but also an understanding of how to adapt our
natural and manmade structures to better withstand more
frequent and intense tropical storms.
Today's advancements in hurricane forecasting would not be
possible without Federal investments at agencies like NOAA. The
National Hurricane Center, part of NOAA's National Weather
Service (NWS), works closely with research partners and with
the broader research community to develop products and services
that ultimately lead to more accurate forecasts. Given the
success of these Federal investments in improving hurricane
research and forecasting, it is now time we expand our focus to
building coastal resilience to hurricanes we have gotten much
better at predicting.
While hurricane forecasts have improved tremendously, we
still need to continue to improve our forecasts and to better
understand what to expect during hurricane season in both the
short and long term. Hurricane forecasts help us understand the
new normal we are facing, informing research needed to develop
resilience to increasingly extreme hurricanes. This means broad
investments into interdisciplinary research that can address
tough problems. That is why we are here today.
I look forward to hearing from our expert panel how the
Science, Space, and Technology Committee can best support
interdisciplinary research needed to help coastal communities
like Houston build resilience to hurricanes.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Fletcher follows:]
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Subcommittee on
Environment's field hearing on hurricane and coastal resilience
research.
I am glad we are able to hold this hearing in Houston
today, and I am pleased to welcome our witnesses, including two
Houstonians, Dr. Rifai and Mr. Blackburn, and my colleagues. I
thank Chairwoman Johnson for making this field hearing
possible.
Here in Houston, we know the devastation hurricanes can
bring-and we know the importance of preparing. As a young girl,
I was just a few blocks from where we sit today, in the house I
grew up in, when Hurricane Alicia came through Houston-the eye
of the storm passing right overhead. And in the years since, we
have seen many storms, here and across the Gulf Coast. We know
them by them by name: Rita. Ike. Harvey.
In fact, Texas is particularly vulnerable. The Texas
General Land Office has found that in the last fourteen years,
every coastal county in Texas received at least one hurricane
disaster declaration. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey rewrote the
continental U.S. record for total rainfall from a tropical
cyclone. It was the second-costliest hurricane in U.S. history,
behind only Hurricane Katrina. At least 68 people died from the
direct effects of the storm, and it left an estimated $125
billion of damage in its wake. We are still recovering.
We have watched in recent days as Hurricane Barry made its
way to the coast, predicted to dump one to two feet of
rainwater across Louisiana, with storm surges along the
Mississippi River. Fortunately, the effects were not as severe
as expected. But we know that will not always will be the case.
The science is clear: Hurricanes are becoming more frequent
and more intense. That means more storms like Harvey. And with
that knowledge, it is time to expand the conversation beyond
just improving weather forecasts, so that communities can
prepare for and recover from severe storms.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or
NOAA, defines coastal resilience as ``building the ability of a
community to `bounce back' after hazardous events such as
hurricanes, coastal storms, and flooding - rather than simply
reacting to impacts.'' I know that my constituents, and
Americans across the country, want the federal government to do
more than simply react to hurricane impacts.
Investing in research can facilitate the development of
evidence-based policies that address how our environment is
changing and how this change will affect society. We need not
only a better understanding of the conditions that generate
hurricanes, but also an understanding of how to adapt our
natural and man-made structures to better withstand more
frequent and intense tropical storms.
Today's advancements in hurricane forecasting would not be
possible without federal investments at agencies like NOAA. The
National Hurricane Center, part of NOAA's National Weather
Service, works closely with research partners within the
Agency, such as the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research,
and with the broader research community, to develop products
and services that ultimately lead to more accurate forecasts.
Given the success of these federal investments in improving
hurricane research and forecasting, it is now time we expand
our focus to building coastal resilience to the hurricanes we
have gotten much better at predicting.
While hurricane forecasts have improved tremendously, we
still need to continue to improve our hurricane forecasts, and
to better understand what to expect during hurricane season in
both the short- and long-term. Hurricane forecasts help us
understand the new normal we are facing, informing research
needed to develop resilience to increasingly extreme
hurricanes. This means broad investments into interdisciplinary
research that can address tough problems. That is why we are
here today.
I look forward to hearing from our expert panel how the
Science, Space, and Technology Committee can best support
interdisciplinary research needed to help coastal communities
like Houston build resilience to hurricanes.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Before I recognize Dr. Babin, I would
also like to enter into the record a letter from Marie Lynn
Miranda, Director of the Children's Environmental Health
Initiative at Rice University, on behalf of the Hurricane
Harvey Registry. The registry is an ongoing research effort at
Rice that collects health, location, and exposure information
for people along the Texas Gulf Coast. I commend the
researchers at Rice for seeing a need to systematically track
and identify short- and long-term health and housing impacts of
this horrific storm on our community. This information can be
used for ongoing efforts, as well as for future disaster
response efforts. Without objection, so ordered.
I will now recognize Dr. Babin for an opening statement.
Mr. Babin. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really
appreciate you having this hearing. I want to welcome our panel
of experts, looking forward to hearing what you have to say,
and also for those who came to hear what we have to say.
As a lifelong resident of southeast Texas, a witness to
many storms over the years. The very first one I remember was
Hurricane Audrey in 1957, which had about 400 casualties in
Louisiana, just over the line from where we lived in Beaumont.
So this could not be a more fitting place and fitting location.
And less than 2 years ago, Hurricane Harvey made landfall
in Texas and left a staggering amount of damage in its wake. As
has already been said, it's second only to Katrina. Eighty-
eight lives were lost. The National Hurricane Center estimated
that more than $125 billion in damages occurred due to the
hurricane and subsequent flooding. Nearly 40,000 people were
forced out of their homes and into shelters. Over 200,000 homes
were damaged, many outside the 100-year floodplain.
I can continue citing statistics, but the point remains
that Harvey was absolutely a devastating event for the
residents of my district and surrounding communities. I
represent nine counties basically from Houston over to
Louisiana, and all nine counties were federally declared
disasters.
If we need a reminder of the impacts of severe weather,
Hurricane Barry struck Louisiana just last week, dropping 15
inches of rain in a period of hours. And though the Atlantic
hurricane season began on June the 1st, we saw last year that
many of the most devastating hurricanes did not make landfall
until August or September.
Earlier today, this Committee had the opportunity to tour
the National Weather Service office near Galveston, which was
on the very frontline of Harvey, and were able to hear
firsthand about the innovative forecasting techniques utilized
to determine the paths of hurricanes.
This Committee has played a critical role in the
development of weather forecasting, and I'm proud to serve on
it. In April 2017, President Trump signed the Weather Research
and Forecasting Innovation Act, legislation that was drafted by
Ranking Member Frank Lucas from Oklahoma.
It sounds like some weather out there right now, doesn't
it?
Among the provisions included was section 104, which
directed NOAA to improve hurricane forecasting by improving the
prediction of rapid intensification and the track of hurricanes
to include the forecast and communication of storm surges from
hurricanes to improve communication of these very grave
threats. We will hear about NOAA's ongoing efforts to implement
these provisions and what other steps this Committee can take
to improve hurricane forecasting this Congress, the 116th.
Knowing what will happen is only half of the battle. In
addition to understanding the patterns of behavior of
hurricanes, we will also hear today about how we can better
allocate our research priorities in order for communities to be
more resilient when a severe hurricane makes landfall.
As many in this room have experienced in the last couple of
years, we saw homes, businesses, roads, dams, even Federal
Government facilities such as the Johnson Space Center, which I
represent, were unprepared for the damaging effects of Harvey.
Houstonians are strong, and they're resilient. And as we've
seen in the recovery over the last 2 years, they are tough
folks that live here. We have an obligation to ensure that the
residents of Houston and other communities across the country
can have greater certainty that they will know just how strong
a hurricane will be and feel certain that they live in a
resilient community.
I want to thank our panel of witnesses today again for
sharing your expertise with us. I'm very proud to be sitting up
here with our Houston delegation members. And I would yield
back, Madam Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Babin follows:]
Thank you for holding this hearing, Chairwoman Fletcher.
This hearing could not take place in a more fitting
location. Less than two years ago, Hurricane Harvey made
landfall in Texas. Harvey left a staggering amount of damage in
its wake. Eighty-eight lives were lost. The National Hurricane
Center estimated more than $125 billion in damages occurred due
to the hurricane and subsequent flooding. Over 200,000 homes,
many outside of the 100-year flood plain, were damaged, forcing
nearly 40,000 people into temporary shelters. I could continue
citing statistics, but the point remains that Harvey was a
devastating event for the residents of my district and
surrounding communities.
If we need a reminder of the impacts of severe weather,
Hurricane Barry struck Louisiana last week, dropping 15 inches
of rain in a period of hours. Though the Atlantic Hurricane
season began on June 1st, we saw last year that many of the
most devastating hurricanes did not make landfall until August
and September.
Earlier today, members of this committee had the
opportunity to tour the National Weather Service office near
Galveston, which was one of the first cities to be devastated
by Harvey. We had the opportunity to hear first hand about the
innovative forecasting techniques utilized to determine the
paths of hurricanes.
This committee has played a critical role in the
development of weather forecasting. In April 2017, President
Trump signed into law the Weather Research and Forecasting
Innovation Act- legislation drafted by Ranking Member Lucas.
Among the provisions included was section 104, which directed
NOAA to enhance hurricane forecasting by improving the
prediction of rapid intensification and track of hurricanes,
the forecast and communication of storm surges from hurricanes,
and the communication of these threats. We will hear about
NOAA's ongoing efforts to implement these provisions and what
other steps this committee can take during this Congress to
improve hurricane forecasting.
Knowing what will happen is only half the battle. In
addition to understanding the patterns of behavior of
hurricanes, we will hear today about how we can better allocate
our research priorities in order for communities to be more
resilient when a severe hurricane makes landfall. As many in
this room saw a couple of years ago, homes, businesses, roads,
dams, and even federal government facilities, such as Johnson
Space Center, were unprepared for the damaging effects of
Harvey.
Houstonians are strong and resilient, as we've seen in the
recovery from Hurricane Harvey over the last two years. We have
an obligation to ensure that the residents of Houston, along
with other communities across the country, can have greater
certainty that they will know how strong a hurricane will be,
and feel confident that they live in resilient communities.
I want to thank our panel of witnesses today for sharing
their expertise with us. Thank you, Chairwoman Fletcher. I
yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Babin.
If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
Good afternoon and thank you, Chair Fletcher, for convening
this important hearing on how we can improve hurricane
resilience research. I am excited to hear how we can help
coastal communities like Houston become more resilient to the
increasingly frequent and intense storms we are already seeing.
As Chair Fletcher mentioned, the Texas coast is no stranger
to hazardous weather. Hurricane damage is primarily caused by
their high winds, heavy precipitation, and storm surge. These
hurricane impacts can be devastating, especially to the
estimated six million Texans that NOAA has estimated live along
our over 3,000 miles of shoreline. Storm surge, and the waves
caused by hurricanes, are the largest potential threats to life
and property in coastal areas. Texan cities like Houston are on
the forefront of dealing with these impacts, along with inland
flooding caused by heavy precipitation, as we saw with Harvey.
Hurricane forecasts have improved tremendously in recent
years. Many of the operational forecasting products developed
by the National Hurricane center within NOAA's National Weather
Service can be attributed to federally funded research. The
Weather Service's partnerships with hurricane research
programs, both within NOAA and extramurally, have played a huge
role in improving the accuracy of hurricane models and
forecasts.
I look forward to hearing from Dr. Uccellini, about the
successes of the National Hurricane Center, and future
opportunities for Congress to support initiatives within NOAA
that can continue to improve hurricane forecasts.
Along with many of my fellow colleagues from Texas here
today, I serve on the Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee. It is becoming clear that the way our current
infrastructure was designed decades ago, cannot withstand the
coming impacts of a changing climate. Better understanding our
future climate through improved weather forecasts and long-term
climate predictions is critical to developing more resilient
coastal infrastructure.
Just as hurricane forecasts have improved due in part to
federal research investments in weather forecasting and
modeling, there is opportunity for Congress to bolster research
into coastal resiliency solutions. Conversations like the one
we are having today with federal agencies, academic
researchers, and resilience-focused businesses, can provide
recommendations that will inform decision-makers on how to move
forward.
I am glad we have two Houstonians on this panel who are
actively collaborating across disciplines and institutions in
the Houston area, and beyond, to leverage a wide-range of
expertise. I can guarantee that there is no one more dedicated
to developing innovative solutions for building coastal
resilience than those who have seen the devastation these
storms can cause first-hand. I hope today's discussion brings
us one step closer to finding these solutions.
Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairwoman Fletcher. At this time, I would like to
introduce our witnesses. Our first witness from NOAA, Dr. Louis
Uccellini, serves as the Assistant Administrator for Weather
Services, and the Director of the National Weather Service.
Prior to this position, he served as the Director of the
National Centers for Environmental Protection, NCEP, for 14
years where he directed the operations at nine NCEP centers.
Before that, Dr. Uccellini has been the Director of the
National Weather Service's Office of Meteorology, Chief of the
National Weather Service's Meteorological Operations Division,
and section head for the Mesoscale Analysis and Modeling
Section at the Goddard Space Flight Center's Laboratory for
Atmospheres. Dr. Uccellini received his Ph.D., master's, and
bachelor of science degrees in meteorology from the University
of Wisconsin Madison.
Our second witness, Dr. Hanadi Rifai, is the John and
Rebecca Moores Professor, and Director of Hurricane Resilience
Research Institute, or HuRRI, at the University of Houston.
HuRRI is a national center uniting a coalition of coastal
universities to promote U.S. coastal resiliency through
research and educational programs. Dr. Rifai's research focuses
on groundwater flow modeling, risk assessment, hydrology,
hazardous waste, and urban stormwater quality. She authored
three widely used computer models for the decomposition of
organic matter by microorganisms. She also codirects the Severe
Storm Prevention, Education, and Evaluation from Disaster,
SSPEED, Center, with another of our panelists, Mr. Jim
Blackburn. Dr. Rifai received both her Ph.D. and M.S. in
environmental engineering from Rice University and received her
B.S. in civil engineering from American University of Beirut in
Beirut, Lebanon.
Our third witness is Ms. Emily Grover-Kopec. She serves as
the Director of Insurance Practice at One Concern and has more
than 15 years of experience in catastrophe modeling and climate
analytics primarily for use by the insurance industry. Prior to
joining One Concern, Ms. Grover-Kopec spent 12 years at Risk
Management Solutions as a vice president where she focused on
analytics for the flood peril in the United States. Ms. Grover-
Kopec holds a B.S. degree in atmospheric, oceanic, and space
sciences from the University of Michigan and an M.S. degree in
meteorology from Penn State University.
Our last witness, Mr. Jim Blackburn, is the Co-Director of
the Severe Storm Prevention, Education, and Evacuation from
Disaster, SSPEED, Center, at Rice University, where he's also a
Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering. In his work at the SSPEED Center, Mr. Blackburn
uses simulations of hurricanes to improve the lead time for
warnings of storm impacts and researches effective mitigation
and coastal resiliency strategies for Houston that can be
extrapolated to other communities. The SSPEED Center is
recognized as the Gulf Coast's top university-based resource
for research and education related to protection strategies for
severe storm flooding and hurricane-related surge.
Mr. Blackburn is also a practicing environmental lawyer
with the Blackburn & Carter law firm in Houston and a Rice
faculty scholar at the Baker Institute. Mr. Blackburn received
a B.A. in history and a J.D. from the University of Texas at
Austin, as well as an M.S. in environmental science from Rice
University.
We will begin with Dr. Uccellini.
TESTIMONY OF DR. LOUIS W. UCCELLINI,
ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR WEATHER SERVICES,
NOAA; AND DIRECTOR, NWS
Dr. Uccellini. Good afternoon, Chair Fletcher and Members
of the Committee. I am Louis Uccellini, Director of NOAA's
National Weather Service. It is my honor to testify before you
today on the state of hurricane forecasting in the United
States.
Hurricane track forecast accuracy has improved tremendously
over the past 2 decades. Storm track forecast errors have
decreased every decade since records began, but we've
accelerated that improvement since the mid-90s. And new records
are set almost every year. Our 48-hour forecast improved from
an era of over 300 miles in the 1960s to only 85 miles today.
The 5-day forecast is better now than the 1-day forecast was in
the 1960s. Our current experimental 7-day forecasts are as
accurate as the day-3 forecasts were 25 years ago.
More recently, intensity prediction has also improved by
about 25 percent over the past 5 years. Improved forecasts have
many contributing factors, including improved models and the
experience and skill of our forecasters. There are three
contributing components to improved America weather prediction:
Increased supercomputing capacity; assimilating global
observations of the atmosphere, oceans, and land; and, three,
improving the increasingly complex models themselves.
With respect to improving the models, the global forecast
system model improvements--that's the American model--the
introduction of ensemble forecasts, and the Hurricane Weather
Research and Forecasting model all represent significant steps
forward in our numerical prediction of hurricane structure,
intensity, and track.
The research and development for the Hurricane Weather
Research and Forecasting model--and we refer to that as HWRF--
is a joint effort between NOAA and academic partners as part of
the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project. This advancement,
which began under the U.S. Weather Research Program, highlights
the importance of research and operational entities working
together to more rapidly transfer promising research techniques
into operations. These programs also accelerated the track
forecast improvements that we've seen over the last 2 decades.
The Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act that
was noted earlier addresses NOAA's critical mission areas,
including improvements to the Hurricane Forecast Improvement
Program, spanning improved modeling, computing capacity, and
working with the private and academic sectors to obtain the
best possible data and to further research on hurricane
behavior to improve the numerical weather prediction of--and
especially to improve the numerical weather prediction of rapid
intensification.
As an example of the important role of our forecasters, the
hurricane forecasters at the National Hurricane Center apply
their experience and knowledge about hurricanes to computer
models and other inputs to make forecasts that, on average, are
more accurate than every individual computer model prediction.
These improvements in NOAA's hurricane forecasts have helped
emergency managers make better, timely, focused, and accurate
community preparation and evacuation decisions and are
responsible in part for the decreasing impacts that we see of
these storms at landfall.
Ninety percent of fatalities from tropical weather systems
are due to water. These water fatalities are either from storm
surge or from inland flooding. The impact from storm surge can
reach up to 100 miles inland along major rivers and
tributaries. To reduce the storm surge impacts, we now issue
storm surge products--watches, warnings, and inundation maps--
for the public, for emergency managers, and for others. We
believe these products have led to better decisions--are the
main reasons for the recent reduction in the number of storm-
surge fatalities from major landfalling storms in 2017 and
2018.
Heavy rains from tropical systems can lead to extreme
inland flooding, sometimes hundreds of miles inland and away
from the center of the storm and days after the storm makes
landfall. We have demonstrated increased skill with our
precipitation forecasts, but that is not enough. For Hurricane
Harvey, we predicted over 50 inches of rain and historic
catastrophic flooding days before it occurred. While
meteorologists knew the flooding would be catastrophic, we
needed to map and communicate those impacts.
Given the predicted magnitude of Harvey, we accelerated
what we called the first use of our experimental flood
inundation mapping information that was under development at
the National Water Center. These maps identified areas that
would flood and, just as importantly, areas that would remain
dry for staging and for shelters. These inundation maps clearly
improved our ability to communicate the potential flood impacts
related to the historic 50-plus-inch rainfall amounts.
Intensity forecasts have improved, especially in the
extended time periods. Strengthening or weakening trends are
often captured by the models, and recent improvement in the
HWRF model showed great promises to predict rapid
intensification and the extent of these trends. The goals of
the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program are to improve the
track and intensity forecast accuracy by another 50 percent
over the next 10 years, to extend high accuracy forecast from 5
to 7 days in advance, and to further integrate social and
behavioral sciences into new products.
Through our newly provided impact-based decision support
services authorized in the 2017 Weather Act, we are better
connected than ever to decisions being made across the entire
spectrum of emergency managers at the local, State, regional,
and national levels, and to the public. Effective communication
about storms provided through these new products, outreach, and
education efforts to increase the attention on the individual
impacts from wind and water hazards that could occur in each
community and to focus on these winds, tornadoes, storm surge,
inland flooding, and ocean waves and rip currents will all lead
to lessen the impact of these storms.
In conclusion, NOAA and the weather enterprise have made
significant strides in the accuracy of hurricane forecasts, but
we must continue to improve these forecasts, including a focus
on the social and behavioral sciences to better understand
people's reaction to the information.
Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today.
I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Uccellini follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Uccellini.
I'm learning we need to sit very closely to the microphones.
We will now hear from Dr. Rifai.
TESTIMONY OF DR. HANADI RIFAI,
JOHN AND REBECCA MOORES PROFESSOR,
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING GRADUATE PROGRAM;
AND DIRECTOR OF HURRICANE
RESILIENCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE,
UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
Dr. Rifai. Chair Fletcher, Members of the Committee, I
appreciate the opportunity to testify before you here today. My
name is Hanadi Rifai, and I am John and Rebecca Moores
Professor of Environmental Engineering and Director of the
Hurricane Resilience Research Institute, or HuRRI, at the
University of Houston. I organized my testimony today into
three sections highlighting the past, the present, and the
future of my hurricane and coastal research. I'll start with
the past.
My journey with hurricanes and severe storms dates back to
Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At the time, we in Houston felt New
Orleans' pain profoundly. A group of us, faculty from Houston
and Louisiana, met to discuss what could be done, and that was
the seed that germinated the Severe Storm Prediction,
Education, and Evacuation from Disaster, or SSPEED, Center. It
was difficult then to secure research funding for the center,
and it remains difficult now to do the same.
My work with SSPEED focused on Houston's industrial
infrastructure and its vulnerability to natural hazards. The
industries along the Houston Ship Channel produce, store, and
transport chemicals and petrochemicals. And in times of natural
hazards, the processing units, storage, and transportation
facilities, including the Port of Houston, are vulnerable to
storm surge, wind, rainfall, and high-channel flows. There are
upwards of 4,100 storage tanks in the Houston Ship Channel, and
they are full with various types of chemicals and
petrochemicals, and the tanks themselves have various shapes
and sizes.
Our research at SSPEED developed the first-of-its-kind
predictive model. The model quantifies economic losses in the
Houston Ship Channel that would be incurred due to varying
storm surge heights at the individual facility level and for
the entire Houston Ship Channel. With this model, we call it
FEDERAP, we predicted catastrophic losses exceeding $70 billion
at 25 foot surge just from the Houston Ship Channel and the
Port of Houston alone.
Other related and critical research that we undertook in
the SSPEED Center involved a closer look at the environmental
impacts associated with surge protection and building gates and
barriers across parts of the Galveston Bay system. We have
developed relatively short- and long-term models of bay water
quality looking at temperatures and salinities when such
mitigation measures are implemented that can be used to inform
surge protection systems design and implementation. Much more
effort, however, is needed to further develop these models into
robust predictive platforms that can elucidate the--incorporate
changes in sediment regimes, flood flows in the San Jacinto and
Trinity Rivers, the timing of the flood flows, drought cycles,
climate change, and sea-level rise. But importantly, we must
maintain the delicate balance of the Galveston Bay system
between its freshwater inflows and its healthy interaction with
the Gulf Coast.
It brings me to the present. As we embark on our recovery
journey in Houston after Harvey, the affinity we felt with
Louisiana in 2005 expanded. We now were looking at the entire
Gulf Coast because of the severity of the 2017 hurricane season
and its disastrous outcomes for all of us from Texas to
Florida.
In forming HuRRI, we aimed to catalyze innovation. We're
looking at six dimensions of resilience. We call them MAPPER.
These include mitigation, assessment, prediction, protection,
education, and recovery. The main goal of our institute is to
change the paradigm from waiting and paying for hurricanes to
anticipating and accommodating them to save lives and reduce
damages and costs associated with natural disasters.
At present, HuRRI faculty are undertaking 12 collaborative
projects that span hurricane flood modeling, sensor
development, resilient power systems, mental and physical
health during hurricanes, and public policies associated with
hurricanes and severe storms.
In my own research program and with the National Science
Foundation grant and seed grant from the College of Engineering
at the university, I mobilized my research team immediately
after Harvey, and we began to assess the environmental damages
and the chemical and biological hazards that may have been
released during Harvey from environmental and industrial
infrastructure. We sampled water and sediment quality many,
many times over a 1-year period to assess the resiliency of our
waterways, our natural water systems, and Galveston Bay. The
results were astounding. It was evident that our waterways have
become rivers of brown, carrying with them a chemical and
biological mix of pollutants onto land, into homes, and into
waterways and sensitive ecological systems.
The overall impact on Galveston Bay is yet to be fully
quantified and understood. In addition to near zero salinities
for an extended period of time, the system experienced
extensive sediment deposition and erosion, pollutant loads
containing organics, metals, and pathogenic organisms.
While the full impact of Hurricane Harvey remains unknown,
what is clearly apparent, however, is that much research is
needed on how to soften the impact from environmental and
industrial infrastructure failures. This knowledge gap has
never been more greater or glaring to us as we observe the
uneven distribution of these impacts amongst Houston's
communities. We determined that while flooding was universally
inclusive, human health effects were not equivalently borne by
our communities. We found a disturbing pattern of their
prevalence in areas with a high percentage of concentrated
disadvantage populations.
This brings me to the future, which is what we're all
about, I hope, here. Harvey is not your typical storm for
Houston by any stretch of the imagination. What the climate
experts, however, are telling us is that storms like Harvey are
the new normal and that in the future, hurricanes and severe
storms will be more frequent, more intense, they will linger
around longer, and they will move slower. These factors, when
taken together, do not portend a bright future for our region.
Houston, until Harvey, was still implementing Tropical Storm
Allison recovery projects. In that last 15-year period, we've
had multiple severe storms and a hurricane.
Confronting the recent rise in disaster losses locally is a
defining challenge for Houston as we aim to be both resilient
and smart. The good news is we do have scientific and
engineering foundations that can reduce the toll on humans,
economic, environmental, and infrastructure losses from extreme
events. However, investments in research must be made to build
our society's capacity to reduce and manage risk and create
resilient and prosperous communities that are not just well-
prepared but socially just.
My analogy and justification for increased research funding
for hurricanes and coastal resilience stems from observing the
benefits derived from directing funding toward research from
penalties after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Obviously, we
cannot penalize Mother Nature for hurricanes and severe storms.
On the contrary, we need to respect her power and accommodate
it. And this can only be accomplished with research and funding
for research on how to best achieve hurricane and coastal
resilience. There is much to be learned on how to harden the
physical infrastructure, how to soften the environmental
impacts, how to understand the ramifications of transitioning
to the new NOAA Atlas 14 storm on flooding, infrastructure, and
communities, and even greater need is to understand future
climate projections, sea-level rise, and their impacts on our
region.
Research should guide our decisionmaking into mitigation
and remedies. Do we elevate homes? Should we expand buyouts? Do
we build tunnels beneath Houston? Do we expand conveyance with
our bayous? Do we build more detention capacity or more
reservoirs? Better yet, do we need to research nature-based
solutions and the possibility of recharging our depleted
aquifers with floodwaters? We also need to research and develop
strategies for rapid response during and after extreme events
to protect people and ecosystems, especially human health.
As academic institutions, our educational mission cannot be
understated. Funding would be needed to integrate knowledge,
training, research methodologies, and findings into existing
and new curricula across disciplines to create a well-trained
hazard and disaster mitigation workforce. Importantly, we need
to leverage the power of data, data analytics, machine learning
(ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and emerging and enabling
technologies in and hurricane protection. We have made
significant advances and coordinated declarations of disaster,
disaster response, and evacuations. This is the right time to
begin to anticipate and accommodate extreme events and focus on
recovery and resiliency.
One of the most important steps we should take--and
admittedly, I am somewhat biased in my passion toward research,
science, engineering, and technology--is to provide continuous
and sustained support for research and research centers such as
SSPEED and HuRRI. We have missions and visions that transcend
day-to-day living and are forward-thinking and forward-looking
engines of innovation and creativity.
In conclusion, I greatly appreciate the effort of this
Committee to support hurricane and coastal resilience research
that keeps Houston and America safe, secure, and globally
competitive and assures constituencies a high quality of life,
health, and prosperity. I'd be glad to answer any questions you
may have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Rifai follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Rifai. Ms. Grover-
Kopec.
TESTIMONY OF EMILY GROVER-KOPEC,
DIRECTOR OF INSURANCE PRACTICE, ONE CONCERN, INC.
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Thank you, Chair Fletcher, Chairwoman
Johnson, distinguished Members of the Committee, for holding
this important hearing and for giving me the privilege of
providing a private-sector perspective. And thank you to the
Committee staff, who have been a pleasure to work with in
preparing for this hearing. It is an honor to address the
Committee regarding the importance of creating resiliency
through scientific R&D (research and development) in a city
that knows firsthand the importance of a more resilient future
and to do so in my current capacity directing the insurance
practice at One Concern, a benevolent artificial intelligence
company.
At One Concern, our mission is to prepare communities to
save lives and economic livelihoods through action before,
during, and after natural disasters. My testimony today focuses
on using R&D in AI and natural hazard sciences to predict
disaster damage, aid officials during all phases of emergency
management, and drive informed decisions that create resilient
systems and financial tools.
One Concern's work would not be possible without the R&D
performed and funded by the U.S. Government and at universities
around the country. We are developing technology to minimize
the impact of disasters like the flooding Houston experienced
during Hurricane Harvey, as well as earthquakes and wildfires.
Our AI platform removes the elements of human bias and
insufficient data in times of crisis, providing objective
situational awareness in near real time to drive informed
response.
Machine learning and AI sit at the core of these analytics,
helping to unlock new ways of understanding how complex
disciplines interact. And these mathematical algorithms
leverage several fields of scientific study, including
hydrodynamic and hydrological-coupled science, structural
engineering, fluid mechanics, seismic and atmospheric sciences.
A specific example of One Concern's unique research efforts
is our platform's application for active flood events that
provides a high-resolution understanding of impending flood
inundation based on forecasted precipitation generated by the
National Weather Service. The solution's AI-driven approach
allows it to correct and adjust during the event, thereby
addressing the core complexity associated with modeling floods:
Their dynamic nature.
Decisions around evacuations in large metro areas like
Houston can be informed by technologies like ours that provide
a granular view of an impacted area at a block level up to 5
days out from a flooding event. This provides an understanding
of which populations face the greatest risk and, through our
continued R&D process, will allow first responders to
understand the impact of mitigated actions. This level of
situational intelligence could potentially change outcomes by
informing targeted evacuations and mitigation to divert
floodwater away from people and critical infrastructure. We are
also working with jurisdictions to implement our flood risk R&D
toward other proactive preparedness efforts, allowing emergency
personnel to create better plans for a disaster.
R&D such as One Concern's could have even more impact
through pre-disaster mitigation. We believe it is important
that policy and infrastructure planning intended to improve
resiliency should be equitable, should focus in on mitigation
overall societal risk rather than mitigating purely the
greatest financial risk, the latter of which tends to show bias
toward the most affluent.
Our data and models assess the baseline resilience of the
entire community, including how natural hazards impact
structures, as well as critical infrastructure. Our R&D,
therefore, would be well-positioned to drive equitable and
informed decisions around overall societal resilience.
In addition to effective mitigation, preparedness,
response, and access to insurance to support a community's
recovery plays a critical role in resilience to disasters such
as hurricanes and their associated flooding. One Concern's
current R&D efforts include assessing the risk to a business'
physical structure, as well as its access to power, water,
roads, and bridges. This provides a transparent view of a
business' overall resilience, which will enable an expansion of
insurance and resilience finance tools. We seek to partner with
businesses and insurers to support the development of new
insurance products that will help businesses, their
communities, and the economy to recover. Ultimately, this helps
transfer risk from taxpayers to the private sector.
In closing, I would like to again thank Chairwoman and the
Committee for inviting me to share One Concern's ongoing R&D
efforts to create a more resilient future. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Grover-Kopec follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you. Mr. Blackburn?
TESTIMONY OF JIM BLACKBURN,
CO-DIRECTOR, SEVERE STORM PREDICTION, EDUCATION
AND EVACUATION FROM DISASTERS CENTER; AND
PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING, RICE UNIVERSITY
Mr. Blackburn. Good afternoon, Chair Fletcher, Members of
the Committee. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss
resilience and research in my capacity as Co-Director of the
Severe Storm Center at Rice, the SSPEED Center. In our work at
the SSPEED Center, we were fortunate to be funded by a private
foundation, the Houston Endowment, and we were able to use the
latest and best cutting-edge methods to address flooding from
coastal surge and from inland rainfall. We were allowed to make
mistakes and find new ways forward. I would like to share with
you what we've learned from that experience.
Three implementable concepts have come from this research.
First, we've developed a structural solution along the Houston
Ship Channel called the Galveston Bay Park plan, a plan to
protect the Houston Ship Channel industries and the west side
of Galveston Bay from a 25-foot surge. This Park plan is
compatible with the coastal spine project of the Corps of
Engineers, and the park plan is being developed alongside the
proposed widening of the Houston Ship Channel, working with
stakeholders such as the Port of Houston Authority.
Second, an economic solution--the Texas Coastal Exchange--
is now a standalone nonprofit that will make grants to
landowners for storing flood waters and carbon dioxide in their
soil.
And third, the proposed Lone Star Coastal National
Recreation Area focuses on enhancing ecotourism and economy
that is flood-resilient. Our research has convinced us that
flooding is the biggest threat to the economic future of the
Houston region, period. There are 2.2 million barrels of
refining capacity, 200-plus chemical plants, and 800,000 people
that are unprotected from hurricane surge along the Houston
Ship Channel and the west side of Galveston Bay. The loss of
these plants represents a legitimate threat to national
security. This is what keeps me up at night.
In our work at SSPEED Center, we found that a lack of
adequate procedures and practices to integrate hydrology,
climate, economy, ecology, and social considerations. They just
simply don't exist. Current engineering and political science
methodologies are antiquated. Our floodplain maps are wrong and
understate the risk. In many ways, our current thinking about
flooding is obsolete. We are not going to control storms like
Harvey. We can learn to live with them. Big rains are coming,
and we must make room for the water. We need a better
understanding about the intersection of engineering and the
storms of the future.
Our climate has been, is, and will be changing. We must
understand these changes to develop realistic engineering
solutions. We need innovative urban design thinking for our
cities. Our creativity needs to be jumpstarted. We are mired
currently in 20th-century thinking facing 21st-century
problems. We need economic methodologies that work with our
engineering solutions.
There's likely not enough Federal money to solve all the
flooding problems in the coastal United States. Therefore, we
need to research and understand how the private sector can
participate in funding these solutions. We're committed to
finding private-sector funding for the $3-$6 billion that the
Galveston Bay Park Plan requires. We need research about how
insurance and investment funds and other private capital
sources can become a major part of our flood solutions not only
here but throughout the United States.
We need a better understanding of risk. What is a
reasonable hurricane surge in the future with a hotter Gulf of
Mexico? What is a reasonable rainfall to plan for in 2025 or
2030? What level of risk is acceptable? Our engineering
solutions are designed to last at least 50 years if not more,
including highways, buildings, landfills, and hazardous waste
sites. What we are building today must be functioning in 2040,
in 2070. That will not occur with our current tools.
Successfully addressing flooding is fundamental to
succeeding as a region in the 21st century. It is the threat to
the future of Houston. For the first time in 40-plus years, I
am hearing the word fear used in conjunction with rainfall. And
it is clear that national security is implicated. Why don't we
think about flooding like President Kennedy thought about the
space program back in 1962 when he spoke at Rice Stadium? We
shouldn't undertake flood research because it's easy but
because it is hard, because that challenge is one that we're
willing to accept and one which we intend to win.
Please consider forming a national flood-related research
effort with a space-program mentality. We actually put
astronauts on the moon with our research. Let's actually solve
our flooding problems. Such a flooding program should focus
upon practical applied research perhaps along the lines of the
old National Science Foundation Research Applied to National
Needs program. Such a program could be a major step in solving
the severe storm flooding problem that threatens our national
security in ways far beyond any other domestic and perhaps
international problem.
We can do this. We must do this. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Blackburn follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Blackburn.
So at this point we will begin our first round of
questions. We will begin with the Committee Members of the
Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and then we will turn
to our colleagues from our Houston delegation to ask questions
as well. With time permitting, we will have two rounds of
questions.
And for those of my colleagues--since we are in a field
hearing, it's a little bit different than our setup that we're
used to in Washington. But we each will have 5 minutes to ask
questions of any of the witnesses on the panel, and I would
remind my colleagues that the timer is right at the base of the
stairs of the 5 minutes. And the lights will light up, and the
witnesses should be able to see it as well to know if we're
coming close to time.
So with that, I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. My
first question is directed to Dr. Uccellini. In the face of
changing climate, Dr. Uccellini, what role can the Weather
Service play not only in a short-term weather forecasting and
predictions but also in long-term climate predictions? And, as
we think about those challenges facing the coast, can you tell
us what extent the Weather Service is currently engaging with
stakeholders in the coastal resilience and infrastructure
community on these particular issues?
Dr. Uccellini. OK. So a number of questions there. With
respect to the changing climate and its impacts along the
coast, the principal impact has to do with the rising sea
levels. With the warming ocean, the sea levels will rise for
two principal reasons. One is the expanding volume of the water
that's heated, and the melting ice that we see over the globe
is certainly having its contributions to the rising sea level
as well.
We--now, we have to accommodate that background--changing
background state into storm surge and potential impacts of
intense storms, whether they be hurricanes or extratropical
storms as well. So we do that--that's part of the short-term
aspect is recognizing that background state is changing, and we
need to account for it with respect to our watches and
warnings.
With respect to, you know, research into the changing
climate, the Weather Service has responsibilities for
predicting out to the sub-seasonal to seasonal range. And what
we're doing today that we weren't doing 15 years ago is using
dynamic climate models to improve or attempt to improve those
forecasts that are used for water resource management, et
cetera. We're seeing success in the temperature forecast. We're
actually seeing challenges with precipitation forecast, and
that's probably going to be the biggest challenge that we--that
we'll face.
We work with the climate community in these models by
running them every day and in some cases like in our models we
run four times a day. We are testing the fidelity of the
algorithms that are then used by the research community in the
global change arena. So our effort is to continue to improve
those models both from a dynamic and from a physical
perspective. And then we put those results back to the--to
those researchers within government, within the academic
community, on the--these model changes.
So, you know, that's basically what we're working with both
from a short-term and long-term perspective.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Uccellini. And my next
question is to the other panelists, if any of you all could
talk about how the National Weather Service products and
services, which are particularly useful in your research or
where there might be additional areas where you would like to
see opportunities for weather research for your purposes.
Dr. Rifai. So we use the products extensively, and we are
very much dependent on a lot of the data that's generated.
Obviously, the precipitation information, the climate change,
the sea-level rise. I think it's going to be hard for us in the
research community to keep up with change, so that's something
to think about.
In Houston, we're designing or have designed for 12.5-inch
storm. The new Atlas could be anywhere from 16 to 18 inches.
Experts tell us hydrologists such as myself, that our capacity
in our bayous is no more than 6 to 8 inches in a 24-hour
period, so we've got a big disconnect to live up to, and that's
really the biggest challenge is this gap between what we're
getting from NOAA to what really needs to be done and is being
done at the--in the trenches so to speak.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you.
Mr. Blackburn. Do you want to say something?
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Yes, briefly.
Mr. Blackburn. Go ahead.
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Yes. We also make extensive use of
National Weather Service products. So I mentioned that we use
the quantified precipitation forecast for our flood modeling
for live events, and we're trying to actually extend our
technology as the Weather Service does the same, right? So
there's a lot of work and funding going into the MRMS project
from out of the National Severe Storm Laboratory. That's Multi-
Radar/Multi-Sensor project, sort of the next step in
understanding quantified precipitation as it falls. And we'll
be utilizing that data and working it into our technology as
well. We also utilize some of the weather observations into our
wildfire monitoring to understand live events for wildfires as
well.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you.
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Yes.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Mr. Blackburn briefly.
Mr. Blackburn. I'd just like to add that we make extensive
use of what we have access to. It would be nice to see that
work expanded in the sense of not only looking for what has
happened in the past up to 2017, which is what NOAA Atlas 14
does, but begin to get projections of where we see these storms
going in the future because that's what's really important to
me because we're building stuff now, like I said, that's going
to last for 50 years. And we need to know what that climate
looks like going forward, and we don't really have the tools at
all that will help us make those decisions. And I think that's
an area for serious research. Thank you.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Blackburn. And I have
now exceeded my time, so I will yield back. And I will
recognize Dr. Babin for 5 minutes.
Mr. Babin. Thank you very much. I just lost 4 seconds
there. OK. All right. To the panel----
Dr. Rifai. I'm glad you can see it.
Mr. Babin. Can each of you, very briefly if you would,
identify for us the areas where you believe this Committee can
best focus on the research or moving forward both for weather
forecasting and developing resilient communities? And we'll
start with you, Mr. Blackburn. And try to keep it as brief as
possible.
Mr. Blackburn. Well, briefly, urgency. I think there is an
urgency about addressing and really elevating this flooding
problem to the--I think the national security issue that it is.
And I think you could help with your abilities to focus us as a
Nation on that issue. And I think a lot of the rest of it will
follow.
Mr. Babin. I could not agree more because I represent oil
refining and chemical facilities in my district than anywhere
else in the country.
Mr. Blackburn. Yes, sir.
Mr. Babin. And after Ike, the gasoline price spiked
throughout the country, and so I appreciate that answer. Ms.
Grover-Kopec.
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Actually, I think through action
demonstrated by this hearing is being open to new technologies
like AI and ML. There's broad understanding of its potential
across the board not just for disaster resiliency, and
congressional committees have put some good funding into
resilient projects. And having those projects being open-minded
to including new technologies to demonstrate the efficacy and
accuracy of those products would be a great way----
Mr. Babin. OK.
Ms. Grover-Kopec [continuing]. To implement them.
Mr. Babin. Thank you.
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Yes.
Mr. Babin. Doctor?
Dr. Rifai. So in the big scheme of things we're heavily
weighted on built environment and on infrastructure. We've paid
a lot of attention to that, not so much on people. I think we
need to bring both in the balance and start thinking about how
people interact with their natural and built environment and
their infrastructure.
Mr. Babin. Excellent.
Dr. Rifai. To me, that's very important.
Mr. Babin. Excellent. Dr. Uccellini?
Dr. Uccellini. Yes, thank you for the opportunity to answer
this question. First of all, the extensiveness of the effort
that's actually involved, technology through science and any
related applications.
Support of the Weather Act, this is probably the most
foundational law that's been enacted that I know of that will
have a direct impact on our ability to serve and people to
react.
Understand that it's from a spectrum from observations
forecast to decisionmaking, so it's the importance not only of
the physical sciences but the social sciences. We have to have
both to move forward.
Mr. Babin. OK. Yes, thank you. Excellent.
And, Mr. Blackburn, much of your research is focused on
resilience. Lack of resilient infrastructure was clearly an
issue when Hurricane Harvey made landfall in August 2017. As we
seek to prepare for future severe weather events, how do you
differentiate the roles of different levels of government? What
role should the Federal Government play in helping communities
to improve resilience to these types of weather events?
Mr. Blackburn. Well, I think all levels of government have
to play in this, and I think the Federal Government
historically has been a funder, a major source of funding. I
would tell you that what I would like to see the Federal
Government do is to reevaluate the methodologies they use to
evaluate funding. I think there is a lot that can be done
there.
Our local government has stepped up with a $2.5 billion
Flood Control bond issued in Harris County. The State of Texas
has begun to get involved, and they were the last to get
involved, and they were missing for a long time. But I'm happy
to see that they're involved. All three have to be involved. I
would say that a lot of the lead could come from the local
government, but I think the Federal Government has always been
the rudder, and think it will continue to be the rudder that
will guide us. I would just like to see your methodologies
updated. Thank you.
Mr. Babin. Thank you as well. I'd also like to reiterate
not only do I have the petrochemical plants, but I also have
Port of Houston. And it was shut down. And so it was an acute
feeling of helplessness when we----
Mr. Blackburn. I understand. We're working on that, and----
Mr. Babin. Yes.
Mr. Blackburn [continuing]. We'll be back in touch with you
on that.
Mr. Babin. You bet. Dr. Uccellini, Hurricane Sandy struck
New Jersey and New York October 2012, causing tremendous
damage. What lessons were you able to take from forecasting
Hurricane Sandy to the forecast for Harvey, and what lessons
did you learn from Harvey, and how will you be able to apply
those to future hurricane forecasts?
Dr. Uccellini. Well, Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Harvey
had similar traits and that is that they were highly unusual in
terms of their track and the duration. I would say that from a
forecasting perspective and a very difficult what we call
predictable--predictability issue with respect to Sandy, that
the forecasters did a remarkable job in predicting and
communicating uncertainty.
What we learned from Sandy, however, is the connectivity
with decisionmakers across the government spectrum--local,
State, to Federal--and it's been since Sandy that we've really
adopted that into our strategic goal of building a weather-
ready Nation and providing what we call now impact-based
decision support services, which is also authorized by the
Weather Act. And what this means is that we have to practice,
practice, practice, practice, practice before an event, well
before an event, establish the trust with these decisionmakers.
And that's--I think was a test of us in Harvey and up and down
the Texas coast.
I'll point out that with the new satellite that was
launched and our co-location with the emergency managers who we
know each other really well, there were some tremendous
decisions made during Harvey up and down the Texas coast,
including where the eye wall crossed the coast and firemen went
out in the eye itself--that never would have happened before--
and saved over 200 lives. So we learned our lesson there.
What we know for now is that we can't rest on past laurels.
We scrub every event to learn what to do for the next event.
And we're always in the process of doing that.
Mr. Babin. Thank you very much, and I yield back. My time
is expired.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Babin.
Mr. Babin. Yes, ma'am.
Chairwoman Fletcher. I will now recognize Mr. Weber for 5
minutes.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Madam Chair. And since I'm going to
be leaving for an airplane here shortly, do I get 10 minutes
now? I'm just asking.
It's a great event you're holding here, and we really
appreciate that. I do have a lot of questions. And I will be
here for round two.
Dr. Uccellini--am I saying that right--we got to tour the
National Weather Service this morning, and you did a fab job
down off of Highway 646 in Galveston County, which happens to
be in my district. Hurricane Harvey, for many of you all who
may or may not know, we were ground zero for flooding. I
represent all three coastal counties starting at the Louisiana
border. I got Jefferson County, then I've got Galveston County,
then I have the southern half of Brazoria County. So for us it
was a huge event.
I got to drive all three counties during that time, as I
told you all earlier today. I have an F-350 1-ton truck 4-
wheel-drive. I'm from Texas after all. It sets up about knee-
high, and I can go through water that most cars would never
dream of. I got to watch you all in action, I've got to watch
Jefferson County Emergency Management Center in action, and I
got to watch Brazoria County Emergency Management Center in
action. So I got up close and personal to watch this in real
time what we were going through.
So this is a very timely hearing, Congresswoman Fletcher.
Again, I applaud you for holding it.
This stuff is huge and very, very important to the Texas
Gulf Coast. Dr. Babin is right. He may have more refineries
than I do, but we actually manufacture about 65 percent of the
Nation's jet fuel in my district, about 20 percent of the
Nation's gasoline east of the Rockies. And when you take the--
in my district. Now, that's without the Port of Houston. Jump
up and grab that port, it's almost 85 percent of the Nation's
gasoline, almost 60--jet fuel rather, and almost 45 percent of
the gasoline. It is huge, about 6 million people in the
collective area.
I noticed that you talked about 800,000 people up and down
the Ship Channel, but I would say let's expand that to all the
families and the homes and the jobs that it represents, so that
this is a huge issue for us to tackle.
Well, all that to say that being a Member of the Science
Committee, we are actually working on now a new type of
supercomputing. You've probably heard about it. And my question
is, are you interacting with any of the national labs on
quantum computing?
Dr. Uccellini. The research component of NOAA certainly is,
and as we work our way toward the next generation of computing
over the next 10 years, we are actually--well, NOAA and
especially the Weather Service is what's been designated as an
implementing agency. So we are certainly working with the
research community within the government and outside the
government on this next-generation compute, and we stand ready
to be able to run on those computers and test out the new
technology.
Mr. Weber. Well, thank you for that. You said in one of
your question and answers with one of the Members that you are
running tests on algorithms. And if I understand correctly,
quantum computing helps us run tests on algorithms. And maybe
this is a question for the lady from the AI community.
Dr. Uccellini. Right.
Mr. Weber. Just super, super fast. Do you know if that's
the case? Quantum computing--I'm sorry, your name is----
Ms. Grover-Kopec. That's OK.
Mr. Weber. Dr. Grover-Kopec. Am I saying that right?
Ms. Grover-Kopec. It is, yes. I will defer--we are not
using it, but I think it's more attuned to the scale of work
that the Weather Service----
Mr. Weber. Right.
Ms. Grover-Kopec [continuing]. That NOAA is doing.
Mr. Weber. Now, you did mention in your testimony that you
want to take the human element out of it as much as possible.
You want this artificial intelligence to be making--and
obviously, they can make decisions quicker than any of us can
generally speaking. But I will tell you, based on what I said
earlier, I made all three of those counties--for about a solid
week and a half I was on the ground in all of the emergency
management centers. I was in many of the shelters and watching
this in real time unfold. The Brazos Port River and the San
Bernard River come to the southern Brazoria County, and my
district director and I were over there day 1, and we said it's
only a matter time before everything downstream is flooded. So
we watched that very closely.
I have to say, especially the Weather Service, who is
embedded with the emergency management center over there in
Galveston County, the people that were making those decisions
were making it based on families and houses and neighborhoods
and yes, industry, and yes, the ability to produce and
manufacture gasoline, diesel jet fuel. You can go right--
refined chemicals. You can go right down the list. So if we
come in with artificial intelligence, are we going to be able
to do that in such a way, Ms. Grover-Kopec, that will help
those people to interface with those local officials?
Ms. Grover-Kopec. I think that's exactly the point, right?
So maybe just to clarify my comment and then respond, some
common hesitancy around machine learning is that there's
inherent bias in the data. And so my point is in creating
models in the data that we collect, we're doing so in a way to
avoid that bias.
But in terms of actually using the modeling to respond to
events, we're absolutely on the same page. So, for example, the
products that we put out for our live events actually allows a
jurisdiction to look to see where the most vulnerable
communities are, where are the hospitals, where are the nursing
homes, where are the schools so that they can respond
appropriately and have the human element of response in the
decisionmaking, not in the analytics. If that make sense?
Mr. Weber. OK. Well, I'm over my time. I appreciate that.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Weber. I will now
recognize Mr. Olson for 5 minutes.
Mr. Olson. Thank you, Chairwoman Fletcher, and thank you so
much for your hard work to make this very important field
hearing happen. And welcome to our four witnesses. A special
welcome to Dr. Uccellini. One of your alumni from your alma
mater, a guy named J.J. Watt, showed what Houston Strong means
during Hurricane Harvey. That man by himself, our star football
player, promised to raise $250,000 for our citizens here in
Houston. He stopped at about $338 million. That is Houston
Strong. That is J.J. Watt. Thank you, Wisconsin, for giving us
such a hero.
As you all know, damage from hurricane comes from mostly
two sources, a storm surge--a wall of water--and heavy, heavy
rainfall. Hurricane Ike in 2008 had a wicked storm surge
wherein above the sea wall built after the Galveston hurricane
in 1900 ricocheted off the older part of Galveston Bay, came
back, hit Galveston without protection, and I saw all the
damage that happened because of Hurricane Ike. And that was
just a category-2 storm.
Harvey was not a storm surge, at least not for us. Some
parts of my district got 5 feet of rain in less than 2 days. In
fact, it got so bad, as the Chairwoman knows, there are two
reservoirs near Kinney, Texas. One is called Barker, one is
called Addicks. They've never been open to stop an overflow of
the levees, of the dams. They had to open those gates early, in
the middle of the night. It flooded 600 homes, the subdivision
called Canyon Gate. Those people woke up homeless.
And so there's all sorts of solutions. We've talked about a
third reservoir up there with Barker and Addicks. We've talked
about a tunnel coming from Kinney down through Texas City, La
Marque to Galveston Bay. We've talked about the coastal spine.
But my question is, in your opinion, all of you, and
starting from the left to the right with you, Mr. Blackburn, in
your opinion, how should we be investing our limited resources?
How do we balance things between storm surge, rain in an
environment where, coming from D.C., our funds are very
limited? As you know, right now, we're facing a $21 trillion
national debt, and that's going to go up this week. So without
a boatload of money coming from D.C., how can we fight to make
sure we're resistant in the future--prevention?
Mr. Blackburn. Well, that's a tough one. And I appreciate
you asking that.
Mr. Olson. That's why I'm here.
Mr. Blackburn. I understand that. I appreciate you asking
the question. A couple of thoughts on that. First of all, I
think we've got to find more sources of money than just the
Federal Government. We've got to--I mean, I mentioned the fact
about trying to figure out how to bring other sources of money
to this. There's all sorts of creative bond concepts that are
out there. They're not being implemented. I don't know why. I
think this is one of the things we're about to find out a lot
more about.
But I would just say, one, trying to increase the pool of
money that is available ought to be a priority, and I think the
private sector is a place to look and find that support.
Second, I think that there needs to be prioritization of a
number--I think you've got to split between storm surge and
between rainfall flooding. They're both big issues. They're
both huge issues. I would tell you the surge flooding is
perhaps the more violent of the two. I think you've got a
greater chance of loss of life. I think you've got a lot of--a
better chance of major industrial damage and a huge
environmental release. And I think that just on that scale
surge demands a lot of attention. And we forget it a lot
because it seems like we have a 100-year rain here all the
time, but it--we don't have a 100-year surge very often. But I
would split that between the two. Thank you.
Mr. Olson. Ms. Grover-Kopec?
Ms. Grover-Kopec. I actually--I might turn the question on
its head a bit. Rather than focusing on diverting research
toward one aspect of a peril versus another, rainfall flooding
versus surge, I would look at what makes the community more
resilient regardless of where that water is coming from. And it
won't surprise you that I'll say insurance. Take up for
insurance among private citizens for flood is incredibly low,
and we know that a significant amount of the loss that was seen
in Harvey was outside of the NFIP (National Flood Insurance
Program) take-up.
So to Dr. Rifai's comments around social behavior, there's
actually research in trying to guide the positive
decisionmaking to get people to purchase that insurance, and
having the products there available to them I actually think
would be a good start.
Mr. Olson. Well, darn, you're ready for Congress with that
answer.
Dr. Rifai, your comments?
Dr. Rifai. So, very simply, I would second the motion and
say we really need to incentivize resilience. Instead of paying
us for damages, make us do it better. And when we do it better,
it doesn't break.
Mr. Olson. Dr. Uccellini?
Dr. Uccellini. Well, thank you. I was actually--from a
water resource management perspective, I can't offer
engineering advice because I'm not an engineer, all right, and
I don't know the--but we do know that if communities are ready
and responsive to these extreme events, they tend to be more
resilient. So a comment was made earlier about Barry wasn't as
impactful as expected. Maybe it's the result of--that the
community really had 5 to 10 days to become ready and
responsive to the forecast.
I suggest that if you even look at Harvey versus the 1900
storm, there was no situational awareness of exactly where that
storm was or when it was coming in and over 6,000 lives were
lost. We'll never know how many lives were actually lost here.
Eighty-eight lives lost is a terrible--that's a terrible
statistic, but it could have been a lot worse if we didn't have
this investment in what we're doing.
So to address the issues that you're talking to will take a
lot of effort in terms of becoming ready and responsive to
increased resiliency. I would offer that, you know, we focus on
the prediction aspect of that and working in partnership with
the local communities to make that happen.
Mr. Olson. Thank you. My time is expired. I yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Olson. I'll now
recognize Ms. Jackson Lee for 5 minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Madam Chair. And let me thank
Congresswoman Fletcher for a very significant, timely, and I
would offer to say crucial hearing as we are on the precipice
of the beginning of probably one of the more intense times of
our hurricane season, which would be August really through into
the fall.
And I can imagine that we are certainly looking to the
question of resilience, resilience I believe being one of the
most important responses to the devastation of flooding and
hurricanes.
And I think people are also what is important because
today, I was--it was brought to my attention of a 75-year-old
who is still living in a trailer on her property, pursuant to
Hurricane Harvey. That means that throughout our respective
districts there are people who are still struggling to be
resilient and to overcome the devastation of Hurricane Harvey,
51 trillion gallons of water, which I think we have not seen in
this region for the time of our hurricanes, separating from the
Galveston hurricane in the early 1900s.
So I thank the witnesses for their presentation, and I have
a series of quick questions. I do want to make the point,
however, about NOAA and its importance and the Hurricane
Research Division, that NOAA is continuing to improve
predictions of hurricane intensity, high and sustained wind
speeds over the course of a storm's life, storm size,
structure, rainfall, and flooding, and storm surge, all of the
elements that we ran into--run into with respect to floods and
hurricanes.
So quickly to Ms. Grover-Kopec, you mentioned that when we
mitigate risk, it should be all over. It shouldn't be in just
high-income areas or high-cost areas. Can you just expand on
that very briefly?
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Sure. I just--it's--it's just--we're a
very mission-driven organization and feel that resiliency is
our mission and that it should be aimed at benefiting an entire
community and all that contribute and live in the community.
And typically, with current analytics that are used, purely the
financial output is used, which is absolutely important. But
we've actually been developing technology that allows you to
look at the expense of the community that's impacted, the
number of people, the number of homes, which might not
necessarily equate to just the financial risk. So the financial
element is purely important. We just advocate for taking a more
broad view.
Ms. Jackson Lee. It gives a fair shake to older
neighborhoods, senior citizens----
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Exactly.
Ms. Jackson Lee [continuing]. Who are living in different
conditions----
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Exactly.
Ms. Jackson Lee [continuing]. Than some of our newer
neighborhoods. But then it does not eliminate them because
you're talking about all over----
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Exactly.
Ms. Jackson Lee [continuing]. Which I think is extremely
important.
Mr. Blackburn, let me thank you for your long service on
these issues. How important is our understanding and acceptance
of this phenomenon of climate change in our continued research
and funding by the Federal Government on this research dealing
with hurricanes?
Mr. Blackburn. I think it's incredibly important. The
rainfall amounts are changing. The data show us that. I think
that we've lost a lot of time arguing about this issue. I think
just here in the community person after person will tell you
that they're seeing a larger rainstorm than we've ever seen in
the past, and the data support that. So I would say it's very,
very important.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So we need to focus our time understanding
how impactful climate change is and using Federal resources,
which you indicated were very important----
Mr. Blackburn. Yes, absolutely. And looking to the future.
I mean, what none of us have a clue about is what is it going
to look like in 5, 10, 20 years. Those are the issues that are
most important from my perspective.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Ms. Rifai, would you explain--thank you--
the importance of having a well-trained workforce? I think you
mentioned that. And then my final question would be to Mr.
Uccellini to mention the use of social media in your work going
forward.
Dr. Rifai. So I think it's very important to educate our
generations into this very severe challenge that we have, which
is dealing with natural hazards. We really must inculcate it in
every student, in every curriculum in every university,
community college, high school. Schoolchildren, they are the
future, and this is a problem that we're leaving them that they
have to deal with. So I feel very strongly that this should be
really integrated in everything so that not some of us are
prepared, but all of us are prepared today and tomorrow.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Doctor?
Dr. Uccellini. Yes, thank you for your question. I like to
think of it in terms of the use of all media to get the
information out. Social media is becoming increasingly
important in interacting with groups of people who reassure
each other that this is the real deal and they better take
action, so we see that happening. We also get important
information from the social media as the event is unfolding,
which we can then factor into continually refining our messages
during the event. So whether it's communicating outward or
communicating in, the whole range of social media is being
employed to keep track of exactly what's going on. Thank you.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Madam Chair, let me thank you
very much for your courtesies, and I ask to be excused with
other matters in my district. And I'd like to thank the Houston
Community College for their hospitality. And I see that our
Chairwoman is here. I certainly want to welcome her, as I know
that you will. But thank you very much for having this a very,
very crucial hearing.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much. And yes, I would
like to recognize and acknowledge our Chairwoman of the
Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Chairwoman Eddie
Bernice Johnson, who has joined us from Dallas, delayed by a
little bit of weather getting down here. But we are so grateful
to Chairwoman Johnson for her leadership of this Committee, of
really bringing together a bipartisan Committee, working
together in a bipartisan way with the Ranking Member and
serving as a great example to all of us, and for making it
possible for us to hold this field hearing in Houston today.
So thank you so much, Chairwoman Johnson, for joining us,
and you are now recognized for your questions for 5 minutes.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. And let me
apologize for being late. I'm coming from Dallas. I started out
at 10 this morning to get here. I had no control over what
happened. Just blame the airline.
Let me thank our Subcommittee Chair, Mrs. Fletcher, for
taking on the leadership of having this hearing. I was
delighted to support her and say welcome to the other
distinguished Members of the Committee and our visiting Members
as well.
I knew this would be a very important hearing because of
where you're located and because of the weather that we are all
experiencing. We know very well that we are dealing with this
weather change. And it's not a debate. The debate is what can
we do to see if we can relieve ourselves of some of the
outcomes.
Let me welcome our witnesses and thank you so very much for
being here.
We know that we are dealing with a hotter, wetter
atmosphere due to increased greenhouse gas emissions and
increasing rainfall during typical cyclones. According to the
Fourth National Climate Assessment, Hurricane Harvey rewrote
the continental U.S. record for total rainfall from a tropical
cyclone. It has been estimated that the climate change
increased rainfall 38 percent during Harvey, and accordingly,
Houston experienced record-breaking floods in the years between
2015 and 2017. I know full well that is not a pleasant
experience.
Now, Dr. Blackburn, thank you so much for being here. As
extreme rainfall and flooding intensifies in the Houston area
due to a changing climate, what research has been done on
improving the resiliency of roads and infrastructure?
Mr. Blackburn. In terms of the roads and infrastructure
specifically, I would say that they are--in a way are among our
more vulnerable infrastructure that we have. Unfortunately,
they were built at a time before much of the information that
we have now is--was well-known, so many of them are below the
current 100-year floodplain and maybe below the--and certainly
will be below the 100-year floodplain once it's readjusted with
the NOAA Atlas 14 data.
So we--I would tell you that roads are extremely
vulnerable. I think our chemical plants and our refining
infrastructure are also incredibly vulnerable. So right now, I
would say we are a very vulnerable community to both rainfall
flooding and surge flooding unfortunately.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. Dr. Rifai, we know
we've had a great deal of damage. I also serve on the
Transportation Committee, and I've been asking for research for
resilience now for several years. And before we can get all of
it done, we are in great need of the outcome. What are some of
the mechanisms for information-sharing among cities and
emergency managers regarding successful strategies for
resilience?
Dr. Rifai. So there's a lot of data that we could use from
them, and if we had access to this information, the idea is to
put that type of knowledge in with the information from the
weather and the predictions and in with the information from
the sophisticated AI and algorithms and also from--excuse me--
the data that we collect on anticipated damages, weaknesses,
vulnerabilities, and fragilities in the system. So it does take
all kinds of information to put together a system whereby we
can make decisions and make improvements in our systems.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you. Dr. Uccellini, to your
knowledge, how equipped are forecasters and emergency managers
quick to respond to rapid hurricane intensity changes?
Dr. Uccellini. Yes, we have a very strong partnership. In
fact, we call it a core partner with the emergency management
community at every level of government as we've developed--or--
our strategic or realizing our strategic goal of building a
weather-ready Nation. We have to be in partnership with the
folks who are on the ground and making decisions. And whether
we are co-located with them, as we are here, whether we surge
our resources to embed in the emergency management community
during an event, or whether we're working through the social
media outlets to--or direct communications, we keep them up-to-
date on the situational awareness and whether it's in the
forecast mode or during the actual events. So these rapid
changes that we're seeing are well-communicated with them.
And, as I answered before with respect to the changing
climate, we have to calibrate our forecasts accordingly for
things like storm surge or coastal flooding conditions based on
sea-level rise, for example. So all of this is worked into our
ongoing practice with them and actually during the event.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. Let me just say
that we just are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Apollo,
Houston is very familiar with, and many people don't equate
often that research with the outcomes of which we are working
with today, all of the weather forecasting and all that. It's
been such a tremendous 50 years of findings, but we still need
additional information.
It is clear that we have gained by having access to that
information because we're saving a lot more lives with the
projections and the predictions. We're trying now to make sure
we can save some properties as well.
I want to express to all of you just how important this is
to our Committee's research and direction. All of us here that
are on the Committee are very concerned about what we can do
and do it in a fairly rapid manner to see if we can improve
from where we are. And we are bipartisan, as you can tell, and
I don't know that I could say that any Member on this Committee
is doubting whether or not we are going to look out for as much
as we can to try to prevent more property loss in all of this
weather change.
Let me thank Mrs. Fletcher, and I will yield.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Chairwoman
Johnson. I will now recognize Ms. Garcia for 5 minutes.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I, too, want to
thank you for bringing this field hearing to Houston. And,
Chairwoman, thank you for all the support that you gave
Representative Fletcher to make sure that we could do this
because, as you said, this is a very critical topic, and all of
us must work together not only as Members of Congress but
together with all the other local governments.
And I do want to acknowledge that Council Member Stardig is
here, and I know I've worked with her on some of these issue.
And our former County Judge Eckels, who also is known for
knowing these issues like the back of his hand, so thank you
for doing that.
And most of you on the panel I've run across before
because, like many here at the table, I've been through Katrina
and Rita and all of them. You know, I remember Tropical Storm
Allison. I mean, that was not a surge event. It was just a hell
of a lot of water. And that was probably the first time we
experienced something like that to a great degree here in
Houston. So we've been through a lot together.
And my questions are really going to be to Ms. Rifai. You
know, you say in your testimony on page 2 that it is important
to note that we'd be exceeding $70 billion for a 25-foot surge.
What was the surge in Ike?
Dr. Rifai. I'm sorry?
Ms. Garcia. Do you recall what the surge was during Ike?
Dr. Rifai. So the scenario we analyzed resulted in a 25-
foot surge.
Ms. Garcia. Well, I know what you analyzed, but do you
recall what it was for Ike?
Dr. Rifai. Oh, for Ike it was 14, and so----
Ms. Garcia. Fourteen.
Dr. Rifai [continuing]. With the--at the----
Ms. Garcia. So another 11 and we could have suffered $70
billion. How much did we suffer after Ike?
Dr. Rifai. Well, it was a few billion dollars. It wasn't
70. But the idea is Ike, as has been mentioned earlier, is
really not the big storm per se. So if you were to take Ike and
increase its wind or its strength by 30 percent, you would end
up with 25-foot surge. And that basically would be very
disastrous for Houston not just from infrastructure losses but
from its economic viability essentially.
Ms. Garcia. Right. And earlier, you said that it's
important that we kind of weigh infrastructure and people----
Dr. Rifai. Exactly
Ms. Garcia [continuing]. And I always keep it real simple,
especially when I was County Commissioner, to make sure people
understood where we were. I always say that it's the three P's.
It's protecting people, the plants--and I mean industry--I
don't mean their pretty ivies--and of course the port. And
port, I don't just mean Port of Houston but the entire, you
know, 26 miles of the Houston Ship Channel. Would you agree
with that, keeping it simple?
Dr. Rifai. Exactly.
Ms. Garcia. Right.
Dr. Rifai. But----
Ms. Garcia. And then I was really intrigued with your
figure--I think it's 12 on page 17. And I apologize to the
audience if you don't have the handouts. But you mentioned the
number of tanks, but you mentioned that only one has actually
had a spill and--concentrated, but the spill was--it--
significant concentrated disadvantaged populations.
Dr. Rifai. So actually the figure that you are referring to
shows at this one facility there was one tank that failed
during Harvey----
Ms. Garcia. Right.
Dr. Rifai [continuing]. But in fact in figure 12 you will
see that there were many other failures across the city.
Ms. Garcia. Right.
Dr. Rifai. And most of these failures are in these zones
that have concentrated disadvantage. In our work, we define
concentrated disadvantage, looking at five different measures
of disadvantage, one being younger than 18, one being female
head of household, one is the amount of money that you make in
your household, and so on. So when you look at these five
factors, that's the mapping of the community and what it looks
like with regard to disadvantage and----
Ms. Garcia. So is it too simple to say that most leaks have
occurred and impacted the concentrated disadvantaged
populations the most in our area?
Dr. Rifai. OK.
Ms. Garcia. OK means yes? Or would you say it another way?
Dr. Rifai. Well, I mean, we see more impact in areas that
have concentrated disadvantage. That's where the industries
are, that's where most of the release is. Even when you look at
the infrastructure like wastewater plants and hazardous waste
sites, Superfund sites, they're all located in disadvantaged--
concentrated disadvantaged communities. And so when you have a
release, especially when people don't have the means to leave,
they're sheltering in place, they really have no way to get out
of the situation they're in, and on top of that they have to
deal with these biological and chemical hazards, that all--are
all around them.
Ms. Garcia. I ask as I still remember the words at the
first briefing that--I was a State Senator at the time that the
State did before Harvey hit, and they said places that have
never flooded before will this time. And, unfortunately, a lot
of these disadvantaged areas--and many of which are in my
district--sort of always get hit. I mean, I always say that
Harvey was like the guy who's lost and doesn't want to stop and
ask for directions because it wandered--Harvey wandered
everywhere.
So I guess my concern and my final question to you would be
would you say then that the greater impact is usually to the
disadvantaged populations?
Dr. Rifai. I'm sorry, the greater impact?
Ms. Garcia. Impact, negative impact, financial impact,
losing their homes.
Dr. Rifai. Yes.
Ms. Garcia. Because, as you see, most people here are
probably homeowners. I don't know how many people here are from
industry. But I just want to make sure that when we talk about
these issues that we always talk about people first.
Dr. Rifai. Absolutely.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
Dr. Rifai. I couldn't agree with you more.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Ms. Garcia.
Thank you all for your very thoughtful questions. Thank you
for your wonderful answers. We're going to begin our second
round of follow-up questions where the remaining Committee
Members will have up to 5 minutes to ask some follow-up
questions. They may not take the whole 5 minutes, but we
definitely want to follow up on a couple of things.
And certainly we've talked a lot about Harvey and the
impacts of Harvey. And I think there are lessons there that we
can all take. Certainly, I think in response to some questions
from Mr. Olson, Mr. Blackburn, I want to ask you a quick
follow-up. I know Mr. Olson talked about particularly the
flooding of Harvey and the Canyon Gate subdivision, which I
think just the record will reflect is upstream of the Barker
Reservoir. And of course that is a very important concern, the
upstream flooding, as well as downstream.
But one of the things you mentioned in response to that
question, Mr. Blackburn, was that there are a lot of creative
concepts that aren't being implemented, and I was wondering if
you could give us some examples of some of those creative ideas
that could be implemented here and elsewhere because, of
course, the work on this Committee applies across the Gulf
Coast and across the United States. But if you could just give
us some examples of some of those creative ideas, I think that
could be helpful.
Mr. Blackburn. I mean, would that be--are you asking
specifically to Addicks and Barker or more generally?
Chairwoman Fletcher. No, more generally.
Mr. Blackburn. OK. I think from a creativity standpoint,
the--I've mentioned one, getting the private sector more
involved from a financial side. I think looking hard at the
methodologies and perhaps releasing some of the Federal
agencies from some of the binding methodologies that they have
that are kind of tying their hands in how they respond, the
benefit-cost analysis process is something that I would ask you
to take a look at. I think it was done at a time for good
reasons, but it may not be appropriate for now.
From a creative standpoint, I would also look at frankly,
how we're--you know, the role of flood insurance and really
buyout. I would tell you that if you want to get really
creative, let's combine housing strategies with buyout
strategies so that when we talk about buyouts, there are going
to be homes available for people to move into, linking things
that have not been linked before.
And I concur with all of the focus on the equity issue. It
has to be in the middle of that discussion and oftentimes has
not been for various reasons I think related to methodologies.
Chairwoman Fletcher. And would you include natural
infrastructure as part of that creative approach?
Mr. Blackburn. Absolutely. We've worked real hard with
natural infrastructure and particularly trying to work with
landowners to keep them on their lands so that those lands can
flood and not generate a lot of damage. A lot of ranchers want
to stay on their lands. We need to find ways to get money to
them, and we're working on that with our Texas coastal
exchange.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Terrific. And I have one more question
for the full panel. We've talked a little bit about some of the
funding challenges, the Federal Government's historical role as
a funder, but there's encouragement of getting more involved,
especially in the research. But could you identify for us any
of the research gaps that you have found in your work that
could be addressed with Federal funding?
And likewise, are there suggestions of things where funding
isn't really the issue, but there's some collaboration or
collective effort that you could share with us would be helpful
that we should know about?
Mr. Blackburn. Is that to me or to others?
Chairwoman Fletcher. That's to everyone. Maybe if each of
you want to give a quick answer to that, and then we'll move
on.
Dr. Uccellini. Well, you know, I can't talk about funding,
so what I will say is whether it's the Federal Government,
within the Federal Government, or among the government
partners, there's got to be I think more attention paid to how
we can leverage each other. And that also applies not only
nationally but internationally, so we certainly on the science
side are always working with the international community to try
to advance our predictive capabilities, for example.
I see one of the biggest gaps, again, as we are now--it's
relatively new that we're actually going beyond the forecast
and warning to try to affect decisionmaking across the whole.
And what we're finding is--and what's now being reported in
literature is trying--a better understanding of the changing
risk preference of people as an event is coming on them. And
this is this link between physical and social science. And if
there's a gap anywhere, it's cementing that linkage between
those two sciences----
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you.
Dr. Uccellini [continuing]. Science categories.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you. Dr. Rifai?
Dr. Rifai. Sure. So, for me, I will focus on a couple of
key points. One is the ability to basically have research-
informed decisionmaking. We have a lot of tough decisions, and
they're all costly. And it's not an infinite pot of money, as
has been mentioned several times. So for us to make those tough
decisions, we really need to fund research into what would--
what can we buy most for the limited resources that we have.
The second point that I would like to make is in our
country in the U.S. our monitoring grid, our observation grid
is really ancient and old. It doesn't give us all the
information that we need, whether it be the rainfall gauges or
water quality systems, any type of LIDAR (light detection and
ranging) or satellite imagery or boots-on-the-ground-type data
collection. I think it would behoove us to invest in upgrading
that entire network to where we have data on the fly, real
time, and people can make informed decisions.
We'd like to be like NOAA. We'd like to be like the
communities that have access to AI and machine learning and be
able to take that data in real time and tell communities stay,
leave, get out, you're at risk, this is what's going to happen,
and provide this type of information at great detail.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you. Ms. Grover-Kopec?
Ms. Grover-Kopec. I would echo the comments that Dr.
Uccellini and Dr. Rifai said. The thing I would add actually is
a non-funding option is supportive of public-private
partnerships. There are plenty of private enterprises who, both
because it's good for their business and because they care
about their communities that they operate in, are open-minded
to partner with our municipalities, our State and Federal local
governments, and supporting that would be extremely helpful.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Terrific. Thank you. Mr. Blackburn,
any----
Mr. Blackburn. No, I have nothing to add.
Chairwoman Fletcher. OK. Thank you very much. Well, I will
yield back my time, and I will recognize Mr. Babin for 5
minutes.
Mr. Babin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple questions.
Dr. Uccellini, how has the Weather Act passed by this Committee
2 years ago, helped you improve weather forecasting to date?
And another follow-up after that.
Dr. Uccellini. Well, with the separate categories--and I
could go through each one. With the observations, we depend on
global observations. Satellite data is extremely important to
everything we do, as an example. The commercial aspect of that
where--which is being tested now, is something that we need to
look at because, clearly, the government can't assume all the
risk anymore with billion-dollar systems, so this is something
that we are looking forward to actually working and adopting
observations from any source, as long as those observations
meet our standards.
On Titles 2 and 3 is the research improvement of the
models, and there's a major effort ongoing to create our
linkages to the university community. It's titled EPIC as--and
the Administration has been fully behind that, and our
management team, leadership team, and NOAA is certainly pushing
to work that. They're focused on seasonal and sub-seasonal.
There's been increased money redirected toward that area, which
is important for us because we have to know that climate
background, you know, in that time range as we improve our
forecasts.
And then, of course, on Title 4, we have building a
weather-ready Nation, increasing IDSS (Impact-based Decision
Support Services), and we've really embraced that's to move
forward. And title 5 is the tsunami program, and we're
certainly making progress there as well.
So it just teed up all of these efforts and brought a focus
on very high-priority items that we're certainly working to
address now the advances which we presume we'll be getting from
all these efforts.
Mr. Babin. You did mention EPIC.
Dr. Uccellini. Yes.
Mr. Babin. That was my follow-up question, so you took care
of that one. So we will----
Dr. Uccellini. That's Earth Prediction Innovation Center.
Mr. Babin. That's right.
Dr. Uccellini. Right.
Mr. Babin. Earth Prediction Innovation Center, better known
as EPIC. And you kind of alluded to it, but how is the National
Weather Service--how are you going to be able to utilize EPIC
in forecasting hurricane development and tracking in the
future? Sorry about that.
Dr. Uccellini. We need--we absolutely need to have better
ties to the entire research community, not just those
researchers----
Mr. Babin. Right.
Dr. Uccellini [continuing]. Within NOAA but the entire
research community, academic community especially. And this
center is designed to be able to work with them in design, in
the actual research, and then assuring that the research is
done within a framework that will allow for an accelerated
research to operations. And that's one of the key areas that
we're really focused on is accelerating those changes into our
operational system. So we're pretty excited about it. We've
worked with the academic community in the past. What we're
doing here is to broaden that scope and to ensure that there's
a faster return on investment in partnership with that
community.
Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you very much. And then my second and
last question was for Ms. Grover-Kopec. Thank you for being
here today and sharing the private sector's perspective on
developing more efficient disaster response strategies. In your
written testimony, you explain how One Concern's work is made
possible by research sponsored by the Federal Government. Can
you explain how you utilize your company's work to assist
communities like Houston in planning for the next weather
disaster? We'd be very interested in it.
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Sure, yes. Well, I'll be honest with you.
So most of the implementation that we've done on this
technology has been earthquake-focused, so most of the examples
I can cite would be focused on the West Coast and seismic risk,
so we have some good work going with the city of Seattle, as
well as American Family Insurance as an example of the public-
private partnership that we're talking about.
On the climate-related risk more related to kind of the
hurricane risk that Houston sees here, we started to implement
our flood product in the State of Arizona in the Nogales Wash,
and we soon will be doing that with the State of Pennsylvania
around Williamsport and the city of Pittsburgh. And so the
intent there is it's the city managers, it's emergency
responders, and those emergency management officials in those
jurisdictions----
Mr. Babin. Right.
Ms. Grover-Kopec [continuing]. Using the live event
products to respond.
Mr. Babin. The amazing thing is--you know, you were talking
about tsunamis a while ago. When you have a 25-foot storm surge
like we had in Hurricane Ike, basically it's a tsunami with
wind, and so we get a double whammy on that deal, so----
Ms. Grover-Kopec. Yes.
Mr. Babin [continuing]. I'll yield back, Madam Chair. Thank
you very much.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Babin. I will now
recognize Mr. Weber for 5 minutes.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd just like to say for
the public that's here, thank you for being here and for paying
attention and caring enough to come out and spend your time.
I make a note of optimism. You're seeing this very hearing
for the very reason that you're here, to make sure that your
government is on top of things and wanting to make things
better and safer, protect people, families, you know, houses,
and of course industry as much as possible because that means
jobs.
The science is getting better. There's much money needed
for research. I think hopefully you're getting a sense of that
from up here. And so take heart because I look for good things
to happen.
Dr. Uccellini, for you, we had this discussion when we
toured the National Weather Service this morning, which of
course is in my district in League City. And my district has
the dubious distinction of having the two largest rainfall
records in United States history. Tropical storm Claudette, in
1979, dropped about 43 inches of rain overnight in a 24-year
period in Alvin, Texas. And then of course, as you know, Harvey
dropped about 61 inches in Jefferson County, drainage district
number 7, a little longer timeframe but still it was the new
rainfall record.
And so you were very gracious with your time this morning,
Dr. Uccellini. How many National Weather Service centers are in
the United States?
Dr. Uccellini. We have nine operational centers today. We
have a 10th center, which is--will approach initial operation
capability--that's the water center in Alabama--by September
30. So we'll have 10, and they cover a spectrum from space
weather to ocean predictions, so we have centers focused on
what I call a domain space of the sun to the sea. And for those
in the audience who don't think space weather is important, if
you use GPS, it's important. So--as an--or if your plane is
using it, it's important, too. So we have 10 centers.
Mr. Weber. Well, thank you for that. And we are very, very
fortunate and blessed that we have one local. And as you all--
--
Dr. Uccellini. Oh, wait a minute, I'm sorry. We have 122
local forecast offices, so you have that local forecast office.
Mr. Weber. Right, but you know, in Texas, things are bigger
and better, and we want more centers in Texas. I'm just saying.
And so we are very, very fortunate to have that. Now, we had a
discussion with Galveston County, Judge Mark Henry, and he was
there to kick us off. And he mentioned that the Federal
Government, the National Weather Center, did not just barge in
to the emergency management center there, but they asked if
they could come in and partner with Galveston County. And of
course the emergency management center, the Commissioners said
of course you can, you're welcome, please come. And then Judge
Mark Henry said, you know, you came as a volunteer, but now
you're hostage; you can't leave.
And you all laid out a scenario that worked for Hurricane
Harvey, which was so astounding because you had emergency
management personnel there on the ground, you were dealing with
Texas Emergency Management Coordinator, you were dealing with
Harris County. Would you describe for the panel and for the
people here exactly why that worked so well being in close
proximity?
Dr. Uccellini. So it's the development of the trust that--
between the forecasters who--we'll always have uncertainty in a
forecast. We can ever produce a perfect forecast. So yet there
were incredible decisions that have to be made 5, 6, 7 days in
advance to even start the process. So they have to go through
the practicing with us through this developing relationship our
sense of certainty and uncertainty as we approach this event
and gets to a key decision point in which they need to act.
So--and you mentioned the rainfall records. The one
difference between the two of them is we predicted the second
one, right? And even that, making that prediction, I contend
that if we didn't have that trust built in, I'm not sure people
would have believed our forecast of over 50 inches of rain. So
it's that trust factor through practice, practice, practice
that's essential to making this work.
Mr. Weber. Right. And I appreciate that. And for the
panelists and the audience, there were people who stayed there
how many days in a row?
Dr. Uccellini. Geez, I get----
Mr. Weber. Six, eight, 10 days----
Dr. Uccellini. Yes, it was in the 5-, 6-, 7-day range.
Mr. Weber. Right.
Dr. Uccellini. And this facility was incredible in terms of
not only colocations but they had showers----
Mr. Weber. Right.
Dr. Uccellini [continuing]. So, as was pointed out today,
that's really essential for keeping that trusted relationship
working through days 5 and 6.
Mr. Weber. One of the comments made was that the showers
weren't for him, it was for his coworkers, so--anyway, thank
you for that and your service. And I just want the community to
take heart because good strides and good steps are being made.
And, Madam Chairwoman, I appreciate you, and I'm going to
yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Weber. I'll now
recognize Mr. Olson for 5 minutes.
Mr. Olson. I thank the Chair again. And my second round of
questions starts out with you, Ms. Grover-Kopec, about the
National Flood Insurance Program. As you know, there's a
philosopher who said the definition of insanity is doing the
same thing over and over and over expecting different results.
I submit the FIP is a great example of that working in our
Federal Government. Right now, it's in debt about $21 billion
last year. It increased all the floods we had in the Midwest,
what's going to happen to hurricane season. We don't know
what's going to happen. It's going bankrupt.
My former colleague, the Chairman of Financial Services Jeb
Hensarling, tried to pass a bill. He knew the private sector
could adequately address the costs and risks of most floods
probably 90 percent or more with the public sector covering
the--sort of the big issues. He thought that'd be more viable,
lower cost, better service. And so what do you think about the
private sector taking up a big chunk of flood insurance? Is
that viable, will save money, more responsive, or should we
just keep marching down with the current NFIP?
Ms. Grover-Kopec. My own personal opinion is I think it is
viable, though will probably not happen overnight. I do think
some of the changes that FEMA (Federal Emergency Management
Agency) made over the last year around the governance of NFIP
in those policies helps considerably. For example, the ability
of homeowners to use a private policy if they have a federally
backed mortgage instead of an NFIP policy, assuming those are
comparable, that's an example of a really concrete move that
they've made in the right direction. And once those policies--
they're seeing some stability in opening up that arena to the
private sector, as well as openness on the regulatory front at
the State level. I think you'll see insurers step in as--it's a
growth opportunity for them, and they would like to cover that
risk, assuming they understand it well.
Mr. Olson. So say we create that environment, this will
actually work, the private sector take a big chunk of what NFIP
is doing right now. Is that----
Ms. Grover-Kopec. If they understand the risk----
Mr. Olson. Yes, all the--yes.
Ms. Grover-Kopec [continuing]. And the regulatory
environment allows it, yes.
Mr. Olson. Work to go.
But the second round of questions is for you again, ma'am,
and maybe for you, Dr. Rifai. It's about AI. And I'm the co-
Chairman of the House AI Caucus, along with Chair McNerney from
California. And we all know what AI is going to do for the
future, I mean, especially during natural disasters. It will
give us real-time information on unpassable roads, powerlines
that are down, trees are down, status of hospitals. For
example, Memorial Hermann Sugar Land shut down because of the
floods of the Brazos River during Hurricane Harvey.
And also AI never forgets a situation. Who here remembers
Tropical Storm Claudette? Not many hands. That storm set a
record. That tropical storm dropped 42 inches of rain on Alvin,
Texas, in less than 24 hours. That record stood until last
year. Something happened in Hawaii.
So my question is, how can AI--both of you--solve some of
these problems, get this thing turned on and manage it, all
these issues with biases, there's things out there, but what do
you think about AI in the future? How can we help at the
Federal Government make this thing a reality?
Dr. Rifai. So there's so much data out there and so much
knowledge, and it's really hard for the human brain to get
their arms around it, so we need machines to help us sort
through the information and detect patterns. And then by
detecting these patterns, we can make better decisions. So if
you ask me, we need to make maybe 10,000 computer simulations.
Even with the fastest computers, there's no way I and my
research group or any other entity by themselves can sort
through all those results and give you the probability that a
given scenario is going to happen. AI, machine learning helps
with all of that. It's done really quickly. And while I'm not
in quantum computing, I can buy into AI and machine learning;
quantum computing is going to take us a little bit longer to
get that done.
Ms. Grover-Kopec. I just want to comment. That answer is
spot on. And the thing I would add is that modeling approach
allows us to not be so biased by history, right? If you take
what Dr. Rifai just said and the ability to look at potential
future scenarios in a dynamic and a quick manner, it allows to
remove the bias of history. History is important, but we need
to be able to account for the future view as well.
Dr. Uccellini. And if I may, within the forecast process
itself, there's a tremendous amount of information in the
observations, in the models that we can extract and use not
only for supporting decisionmaking--and I contend or believe
that AI or cognitive computing is going to be really important
in assisting in decisionmaking, but it also helps us extract
the information that could improve our forecast and help
pinpoint warnings as well. So we are very actively engaged in
this and have been. There's been--there was artificial
intelligence work that started in the 1990s, so this is
something that we're actually looking toward to help our jobs
as well.
Mr. Olson. Mr. Blackburn, I'll give you your Rice-style
farewell. I yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Olson.
And before we bring our hearing to a close, I really want
to echo the comments of all of my colleagues. I'm so grateful
to have with us in attendance today some of our elected
officials and leaders on this issue, of course Houston City
Council Member Stardig, former Harris County Judge Eckels. And
Russ Poppe from Harris County Flood Control was here but I
don't see him anymore--and our community for coming out to this
hearing to listen to these important issues. It really
underscores the importance of the work that our witnesses are
doing and the work that is before this Committee and the work
that we need to do from where we sit in Washington.
So I really want to thank all of our witnesses for their
time. I want to thank the community for coming out.
The record for this hearing will remain open for 2 weeks
for additional statements from the Members or for any
additional questions the Committee may want to ask of the
witnesses.
And with that, the witnesses are excused, and the hearing
is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:08 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
----------
Additional Material for the Record
Letter submitted by Representative Lizzie Fletcher
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]