[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                         WEATHERING THE STORM:
                       REAUTHORIZING THE NATIONAL
                   WINDSTORM IMPACT REDUCTION PROGRAM

=======================================================================

                                     
                                     

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION
                               __________

                           NOVEMBER 10, 2021
                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-37
                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

                                     
                                     
                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                                     
                                     
                                     

       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
       
                              ___________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
46-032PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2023        
       
       

              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

             HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, 
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon                 Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan,             BILL POSEY, Florida
    Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico     MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California             JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California           MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York                 STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia                  JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         JAKE ELLZEY, TEXAS
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                VACANCY
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
                                 ------                                

                Subcommittee on Research and Technology

                HON. HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, Chairwoman
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico     MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida, 
PAUL TONKO, New York                     Ranking Member
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         VACANCY



                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                           November 10, 2021

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Haley Stevens, Chairwoman, 
  Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........     9
    Written Statement............................................    10

Statement by Representative Michael Waltz, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    11
    Written Statement............................................    12

Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
  Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives.......................................    13

Written statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    14

                               Witnesses:

Dr. Scott Weaver, Director, National Windstorm Impact Reduction 
  Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology
    Oral Statement...............................................    15
    Written Statement............................................    17

Dr. Linda Blevins, Deputy Assistant Director, Directorate for 
  Engineering, National Science Foundation
    Oral Statement...............................................    27
    Written Statement............................................    29

Mr. Michael Grimm, Assistant Administrator for Risk Management, 
  Federal Emergency Management Agency
    Oral Statement...............................................    39
    Written Statement............................................    41

Discussion.......................................................    46

             Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Scott Weaver, Director, National Windstorm Impact Reduction 
  Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology........    62

Dr. Linda Blevins, Deputy Assistant Director, Directorate for 
  Engineering, National Science Foundation.......................    64

Mr. Michael Grimm, Assistant Administrator for Risk Management, 
  Federal Emergency Management Agency............................    67

            Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record

Letter submitted by Representative Haley Stevens, Chairwoman, 
  Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
    Nathaniel F. Wienecke, Senior Vice President, American 
      Property Casualty Insurance Association....................    78

Statement submitted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
  Administration.................................................    81

 
                         WEATHERING THE STORM:
                      REAUTHORIZING THE NATIONAL
                 WINDSTORM IMPACT REDUCTION PROGRAM

                              ----------                              


                      WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
           Subcommittee on Research and Technology,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

     The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o'clock 
a.m., via Zoom, Hon. Haley Stevens [Chairwoman of the 
Subcommittee] presiding.

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

     Chairwoman Stevens. This hearing will come to order. 
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at 
any time. Today the Committee is meeting virtually. Just a 
couple of reminders to Members about the conduct of this 
hearing. First, Members should keep their video feed on as long 
as they are present in the hearing. Members are responsible for 
their own microphones. Please also keep your microphones muted, 
unless you are speaking. And finally, if Members have documents 
they wish to submit for the record, please e-mail them to the 
Committee Clerk, whose e-mail address was circulated prior to 
the hearing.
     So good morning. Thank you to our distinguished panel of 
witnesses for joining our virtual hearing on examining the 
National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, NWIRP. We've got 
witnesses from NIST (National Institute of Standards and 
Technology), FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), and 
NSF (National Science Foundation), and we are so looking 
forward to hearing their testimony today. I am also speaking to 
all of you, and conducting this hearing virtually, from City 
Hall in the city of Farmington, Michigan to bring attention to 
the incessant windstorms that have become more severe and more 
frequent in my community.
     As you can see, the city of Farmington was very badly 
damaged by wind storms that hit in July. The picture below is 
also windstorms that tore through another one of our 
communities in White Lake this summer. This was almost a weekly 
occurrence. I really want to thank our mayor, Sara Bowman, and 
our City Manager, David Murphy, here in Farmington, along with 
the entire city council, that really banded together. 
Unfortunately, the citizens in Farmington and across the area 
have just seen ample evidence and have experienced the 
destructive power of windstorms. We had a supercell storm that 
hit here in July. The residents weren't even able to hear the 
warning. There was no tornado warning or siren that sounded to 
even go into their basements. Not only were trees knocked over, 
but trees were damaged, and they're shaky, and they continue to 
pose a risk to residents in their neighborhoods.
     So, even despite our advancements, severe windstorms 
remain the most destructive and costly natural hazards. We had 
a million dollars of damage between the city of Farmington and 
Farmington Hills, and in Southeast Michigan this summer we just 
continued to experience a nonstop deluge of extreme wind and 
windstorms. We had nine hard-hitting, severe storms in 9 weeks. 
I'm going to say that again, we had nine hard-hitting, severe 
storms in 9 weeks. Tornadoes, hail, derechos, flash floods, and 
supercell storms, which I had mentioned, created a cycle of 
destruction in our communities. And if we can show the map? I 
would just like to show how badly hit we were in Southeastern 
Michigan.
     I share the Storm Report from August 11 that tracked wind 
gusts up to 70 miles per hour and prompted the issuance of 
Detroit National Weather Service's first destructive severe 
thunderstorm warning. The storm marked the first time in 
Detroit that the weather service used its destructive storm 
warning, a new label for the highest category of damage threat. 
These damaging waves of storms have caused countless power 
outages and flooded homes, countless. We're talking power 
outages ranging from hours to days, to just ensuing over a 
matter of weeks. People are stressed. They're exhausted from 
the turmoil.
     And so, with that--in the 2 years since the last Science 
Committee hearing on NWIRP, my home State of Michigan has 
experienced six Severe Storm billion-dollar Disaster Events. No 
State in our Nation is untouched by the damaging physical and 
emotional impacts of windstorms and associated flooding. 
Advances in recent decades have led to significant improvements 
in the National Weather Service's ability to forecast 
hurricanes, tornadoes, and other storms. However, accurate 
forecasts alone are not enough to protect lives and property 
against windstorms and their impacts. I am deeply grateful that 
we are having this hearing today, and a chance to hear from our 
expert witnesses on the additional needs in research, 
workforce, and infrastructure for improved windstorm and 
windstorm impact resilience at NWIRP.
     NWIRP was established in 2004 with three main goals, 
improving the understanding of windstorms, improving windstorm 
impact assessment, and reducing windstorm impacts. Atmospheric 
and engineering research conducted by the program agencies has 
advanced our understanding of the processes underlying 
windstorms and their impacts on structures. Post-disaster 
investigations conducted by program agencies, in particular at 
NIST, further inform our understanding of the behavior of 
structures in windstorms. This research has already led to 
(inaudible) information to the general public on windstorm 
preparedness and actions that individuals can take to protect 
themselves and their homes during a severe windstorm. We 
certainly need to have all the protections in place.
     However, it is policymakers and community leaders who 
truly hold the key to future windstorm resilience through their 
decisionmaking regarding mitigation and preparedness. The 
challenges in preparing for and mitigating against severe 
windstorms are just far too broad for any one agency to handle 
on their own. NWIRP's model for interagency collaboration 
spanning fundamental research to operations has enabled the 
program to make important advances in saving lives and reducing 
the economic impact of windstorms. With climate change 
(inaudible) us, many new challenges lie ahead.
     Authorization for NWIRP expired in 2017, long before I got 
to Congress, but the program has committed to its excellent 
work, and I applaud the agencies for these efforts. As the 
Science Committee considers the reauthorization of NWIRP, we 
engage in today's hearing from the agencies on the changes to 
the program that can continue to improve our Nation's 
resilience to severe windstorms.
     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Stevens follows:]

    Good Morning. Thank you to our distinguished panel of 
witnesses for joining our virtual hearing on examining the 
National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, or NWIRP.
    I am speaking to you today from City Hall in Farmington, 
Michigan, to bring attention to the windstorms that have become 
more severe and more frequent in my community.
    Unfortunately, citizens of Farmington and across the area 
have seen ample evidence of the destructive power of windstorms 
and their associated flooding. Despite our advancements, severe 
windstorms remain among the most destructive and costly natural 
hazards.
    This Summer, Southeast Michigan experienced a nonstop 
deluge of extreme winds and storms--we had nine hard-hitting, 
severe storms in nine weeks. Tornadoes, hail, derechos, flash 
floods, and Supercell storms created a cycle of destruction in 
our communities.
    I share this Storm Report from August 11 that tracked wind 
gusts up to 75 mph and prompted the issuance of Detroit 
National Weather Service's first ``Destructive'' Severe 
Thunderstorm Warning. The storm marked the first time in 
Detroit the weather service used its ``destructive'' storm 
warning, a new label for the highest category of damage threat. 
These damaging waves of storms have caused countless power 
outages and flooded homes. People here are stressed out and 
exhausted from the turmoil.
    In the two years since the last Science Committee hearing 
on NWIRP, my home state of Michigan has experienced six Severe 
Storm billion-dollar disaster events. No state in our nation is 
untouched by the damaging physical and emotional impacts of 
windstorms and associated flooding.
    Advances in recent decades have led to significant 
improvements in the National Weather Service's ability to 
forecast hurricanes, tornadoes, and other storms. However, 
accurate forecasts alone aren't enough to protect lives and 
property against windstorms and their impacts. I look forward 
to hearing testimony from our expert witnesses on the 
additional needs in research, workforce, and infrastructure for 
improved windstorm and windstorm impact resilience at NWIRP.
    NWIRP was established in 2004 with three main goals--
improving the understanding of windstorms, improving windstorm 
impact assessment, and reducing windstorm impacts. Atmospheric 
and engineering research conducted by the Program agencies has 
advanced our understanding of the processes underlying 
windstorms and their impacts on structures. Post-disaster 
investigations conducted by Program agencies, in particular 
NIST, further inform our understanding of the behavior of 
structures in windstorms. This research has already led to 
significantly improved model building codes.
    Additionally, NWIRP agencies disseminate information to the 
general public on windstorm preparedness and actions that 
individuals can take to protect themselves and their homes 
during a severe windstorm. However, it is policy makers and 
community leaders who truly hold the key to future windstorm 
resilience through their decision-making regarding mitigation 
and preparedness.
    The challenges in preparing for and mitigating against 
severe windstorms are far too broad for any one agency to 
handle on its own. NWIRP's model for interagency collaboration 
spanning fundamental research to operations has enabled the 
Program to make important advances in saving lives and reducing 
the economic impact of windstorms. With climate change upon us, 
many new challenges lie ahead.
    Authorization for NWIRP expired in 2017, but the Program 
has continued its excellent work, and I applaud the agencies 
for this work. As the Science Committee considers the 
reauthorization of NWIRP, I look forward to hearing from the 
Agencies on changes to the Program that can continue to improve 
our nation's resilience to severe windstorms.
    Thank you.

     Chairwoman Stevens. And with that, I'm over time. I'm the 
Chair. I'm going to recognize Mr. Waltz, our Ranking Member 
from the nice State of Florida for an opening statement. Thank 
you.
     Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens. Good morning. 
Thank you for holding this hearing. Thank you to our panel for 
your time, to share your expertise on this topic. You know, as 
the Chairwoman said, it's important across the country. It's 
particular--particularly important in her State and my home 
State of Florida. Looking forward to the discussion today, and 
I'm pleased to see the Committee's continued interest in 
improving our understanding of natural hazards as we continue 
to--our review of the NWIRP today. All 50 States are impacted. 
Windstorms, tornadoes, tropical storms, certainly hurricanes in 
my State, and flash thunderstorms. And these storms are--and 
their associated flooding issues are some of the largest 
natural--or largest loss-producing natural hazards in the U.S. 
right now.
     We in Florida are very familiar with extreme weather 
events. In the last 5 years my home State has been severely 
impacted by intense hurricane seasons. Hurricane Irma in '17, 
Hurricane Dorian in '19, both made landfall in my district, 
caused over a billion dollars in----
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Waltz follows:]

    Good morning and thank you Chairwoman Stevens for holding 
this hearing. And thank you to our expert panel for taking the 
time to share your expertise on this important topic, given its 
critical importance across the country and particularly in my 
home state of Florida. I look forward to today's discussion.
    I am pleased to see the Committee's continued interest in 
improving our understanding of natural hazards as we continue 
our review of the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, 
also known as NWIRP today. All 50 states are impacted by 
windstorm hazards such as tornadoes, tropical storms, 
hurricanes, and thunderstorms, and these storms and their 
associated flooding are the largest loss-producing natural 
hazards in the United States.
    We Floridians are very familiar with extreme weather 
events. Over the last five years, my home state has been 
severely impacted by intense hurricane seasons. Hurricane Irma 
in 2017 and Hurricane Dorian in 2019 made landfall in my 
district and caused over $100 billion in estimated damages. 
After Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992 and destroyed over 
125,000 homes, state and local officials acted to establish 
stronger building codes to make Florida's buildings more 
resilient to hurricane-force winds. I am proud to see that 
Florida stepped up to keep Floridians safer from extreme 
weather.
    We have already seen record-breaking costs from severe 
hurricanes and windstorms, and the Congressional Budget Office 
projects annual losses from hurricanes will increase from .16 
percent of GDP to .22 percent of GDP by 2075.
    NWIRP was established by Congress in 2004 to help reduce 
the loss of life and property from severe windstorms and its 
work has never been more important. NWIRP provides a 
coordinated federal response by working with different levels 
of government, academia, and the private sector to conduct 
research and development. These activities help us to gain 
greater insights into windstorms and their impacts. Even more 
importantly, they help us develop and implement voluntary, 
cost-effective mitigation measures like better engineering 
techniques, communications tools, and risk assessments.
    In the nearly two decades since NWIRP was created, federal 
science agencies have made great strides. The National 
Institute of Standards and Technology leads research to improve 
building codes and standards. The National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration continues to improve forecasting 
techniques for extreme weather.
    The National Science Foundation supports a broad range of 
basic research in atmospheric sciences and engineering, 
including through the Natural Hazards Engineering Research 
Infrastructure program. The NSF also supports the Wall of Wind 
at Florida International University, which allows for 
researchers to test to failure full-sized structures such as 
manufactured housing and small commercial structures. Such 
research will lay the groundwork for developing risk-based and 
performance based design criteria, leading to more sustainable 
costal communities.
    While progress has been made to improve our understanding 
of windstorms, knowledge gaps still remain. It is critical that 
we continue to support this life-saving research and 
development to help better prepare for these severe weather 
events.
    I would like to thank our witnesses again for their 
participation today. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.

     Chairwoman Stevens. Mr. Waltz might have frozen. Let's 
just give him a minute here.
     Staff. Yes, ma'am, it does appear that his connection has 
frozen. We'll try to contact his office and see if we can clear 
that up.
     Chairwoman Stevens. OK. OK, great. And then--so why don't 
we do this? I'll turn to the introduction of our witnesses, buy 
us some time, talk about these brilliant people who are before 
us, and then if Mr. Waltz is able to get back on, we'll allow 
him to reclaim his, you know, 3 minutes, because he does have 3 
minutes left.
     So our first--let's see. OK. He's disappeared, OK. Our 
first witness is Dr. Scott Weaver. Dr. Weaver is the National 
Windstorm Impact Reduction Program Director at the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST. Prior to joining 
NIST in 2018, Dr. Weaver served as the Senior Climate Scientist 
for the Environmental Defense Fund, EDF, and spent several 
years as a research meteorologist in the Climate Prediction 
Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 
NOAA. Also holds an appointment as an adjunct associate 
professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science 
at the University of Maryland.
     Our next witness is Dr. Linda Blevins. Dr. Blevins is the 
Deputy Assistant Director of the Engineering Directorate at the 
National Science Foundation, NSF. In this role she provides 
leadership and direction to the Directorate, which supports 
research and education that advance sustainability, 
manufacturing, health, infrastructure, and other national 
priorities. Prior to joining NSF in 2017, Dr. Blevins served as 
a Senior Technical Advisor in the Office of the Deputy Director 
for Science Programs in the Department of Energy's Office of 
Science.
     Our final witness is Mr. Michael Grimm. Mr. Grimm is the 
Assistant Administrator for Risk Management at the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency, FEMA. Under his direction, the 
Risk Management Directorate delivers quality risk data modeling 
and programs that increase the public's awareness of risk 
across the range of natural hazards. He also directs the 
National Hazard Mitigation [inaudible] Stafford Act and FEMA's 
actuarial and catastrophic modeling responsibilities. Mr. Grimm 
has also previously served as the Assistant Administrator for 
FEMA's Mitigation Directorate, and directed FEMA'S Individual 
Assistance Division.
     I'm going to pause for a minute. Has Mr. Waltz been able 
to rejoin us? I'm not seeing him. I know we have the Full 
Committee Ranking Member on with us here today, Mr. Frank 
Lucas, who was not going to be delivering an opening statement, 
but obviously fairness and bipartisan exchange are very 
important to this Committee. All right. So it doesn't look like 
we have Mr. Waltz back. So what we'd like to do right now is 
move into--and our Full Committee Chair, Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
is at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, so she's not with us 
either. Certainly an important hearing, though, for today.
     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens and Ranking Member Waltz, for 
holding this important hearing today. And thank you to our 
witnesses for joining us.
    Many Americans have suffered personal losses from severe 
storms and flooding. The frequency, severity, and cost of 
disasters will only continue to increase with climate change. 
Storms do not know the difference between rich and poor, Black 
and white. Nevertheless, because of stark economic and racial 
disparities in where people live and the resilience of their 
homes and communities, the brunt of these storms is too often 
felt by poor minority communities. A single storm can push 
families over the edge to financial catastrophe.
    Accurate and timely forecasts are important for knowing 
when and whether to evacuate communities and prepare for storm 
impacts. Forecasting hurricanes, tornadoes, and other windstorm 
events has improved significantly in the last 30 years, thanks 
to the work of NOAA and the National Weather Service. But 
accurate weather forecasts aren't enough to reduce windstorm 
impacts and save lives.
    In Texas, we're no strangers to impacts from powerful 
tornadoes and hurricanes. Tornadoes cause more deaths per year 
than earthquakes and hurricanes combined. Aside from tornado 
shelters however, buildings have historically not been designed 
to withstand tornadoes. At a recent Committee hearing, we heard 
about the devastating 2011 tornado outbreak in the South. The 
Joplin tornado prompted the National Institute of Standards and 
Technology to investigate the damages to buildings. NIST 
collaborated with private sector partners to develop a new 
building standard that takes account of tornado threats for the 
first time. While more progress has been made in designing 
buildings resilient to hurricane winds, they remain vulnerable 
to coastal storm surge and flooding related to hurricanes.
    The National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program (NWIRP) 
directs not just individual agency investments and activities, 
it requires active coordination and collaboration among the 
Program agencies. NWIRP ensures that the research on windstorms 
and windstorm impacts is translated into more resilient 
buildings and communities, including through collaboration with 
the private sector to update model building codes and modernize 
approaches to building design. Under NWIRP and otherwise, the 
Federal government can help provide tools, resources, and 
incentives to improve windstorm preparedness and mitigation. 
However, it is up to local and state governments to adopt these 
tools to protect their most vulnerable communities from natural 
disasters.
    While the outcomes of NWIRP have been significant, the 
program receives little attention and funding. Nevertheless, 
the agencies have continued in their efforts, and they need our 
support. I look forward to working with my colleagues to 
reauthorize and update NWIRP to build a more resilient future 
and help protect the most vulnerable among us.

     [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

    Good Morning Chairwoman Stevens and thank you for holding 
this hearing on the National Windstorm Impact Reduction 
Program.
    We in Oklahoma, like Florida, are very familiar with the 
damage windstorms can cause. Efforts to reduce the loss of life 
and property from these disasters is of extreme importance to 
my family, friends, and neighbors.
    Each year, lives are lost and billions are spent recovering 
from the destruction caused by tornadoes, hurricanes and other 
windstorms. And the costs associated with windstorms are 
increasing. Oklahoma is part of ``tornado alley'' And so far in 
2021, we have experienced 25 tornadoes. Thankfully, none have 
resulted in serious damage or loss of life. But over the past 
10 years, tornados have caused an average financial loss of 
over $10 billion per year across the Country.
    NWIRP helps provide coordination between federal government 
agencies, universities, industry, and local and state 
governments. This cooperation is needed to meet the great 
challenge of responding to windstorms.
    One example of such research is the TORUS project that the 
National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are supporting and the 
University of Oklahoma is part of. This project involves more 
than 50 researchers and students using different tools to, 
including unmanned aircraft systems, mobile radars and NOAA's 
``Hurricane Hunter'' aircraft to collect data on supercell 
thunderstorms across the Great Plains during 2019 and 2022. The 
team was unable to go into the field during 2020 and 2021 due 
to the COVID pandemic.
    During the 2019 field season, after 32 days on the road and 
traveling more than 9,000 miles, researchers encountered 19 
supercell storms, with eight of those storms producing 
tornadoes. Researchers expect results from the TORUS project to 
be groundbreaking. The insights gained will improve our 
understanding of why some supercells create tornadoes and 
others do not, leading to improved forecasting.
    This research is important, but it is also key that we find 
practical and effective applications for this research, so that 
it reaches those who need it most--states and local 
communities.
    NWIRP is directed to conduct research and development to 
help improve building codes, voluntary standards and 
construction practices to improve the resilience of structures 
to windstorms. These investments in R&D activities support the 
creation of improved windstorm impact reduction measures, such 
as increased warning time and the development of safe room 
building guidance.
    While it has seen some success, I look forward to hearing 
from our witnesses on how we can better improve the transfer of 
this research to the building code communities. In addition, I 
look forward to hearing what steps N-WIRP is taking to improve 
public outreach and information dissemination. It is important 
we continue to support the federal research done through NWIRP 
to improve our understanding of windstorms, their impacts, and 
to develop enhanced mitigation measures.
    I would like to thank our witnesses for coming today to 
share their expertise on the challenges, and hopefully 
successes, of reducing windstorm impacts. Thank you and I yield 
back the balance of my time.

    Chairwoman Stevens. So what we'd like to do is move into 
witness testimony. These are really nice testimonies, they've 
been written up. We're going to get the 5 minutes--our 
witnesses are going to get 5 minutes for spoken testimony. Your 
written testimony is going to be included in the record for the 
hearing. When you have completed your spoken testimony, we're 
going to begin with questions, and each Member will have 5 
minutes to question the panel. When we reclaim Mr. Waltz, we're 
going to add his 3 minutes to his question time.
     So, with that, we're going to start with Dr. Weaver for 5 
minutes of questioning. I see you on the screen, Dr. Weaver. 
You're going to do 5 minutes of--excuse me, of testimony, all 
right? Thank you.

            TESTIMONY OF DR. SCOTT WEAVER, DIRECTOR,

          NATIONAL WINDSTORM IMPACT REDUCTION PROGRAM,

         NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY

     Dr. Weaver. All right. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. 
Chairwoman Stevens, Ranking Member Waltz, and Members of the 
Subcommittee, I am Dr. Scott Weaver, Director for the National 
Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, or NWIRP, at the Department 
of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology, 
known as NIST. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before 
you today. NWIRP is an inter-agency science and engineering-
based program focused on achieving major measurable reductions 
in losses of life and property from windstorms through a 
coordinated Federal effort involving FEMA, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. 
Since NWIRP's inception in 2004, the program has made notable 
progress toward efforts to reduce windstorm impacts. This 
includes significant improvements in hurricane forecasts and 
increased tornado warning times, advancements in the science of 
wind mapping to form engineering-based design standards, 
improved coordination practices and research support for post-
windstorm investigations, and implementation of research-based 
recommendations into codes, standards, and practices. Despite 
these achievements, the Nation continues to experience 
increased loss of life and property due to these extreme 
weather events.
     Windstorms, and associated flooding, are the largest loss-
producing natural hazards in the U.S. Every State in the 
country is exposed to windstorm hazards from one or more storm 
types. Over the last 40 years windstorms have caused over $1 
trillion in economic losses, and over 8,000 fatalities in the 
U.S. The greatest of these losses are associated with tornadoes 
and hurricanes.
     Over the past 10 years tornadoes have caused an average 
loss of approximately $10 billion per year. In 2011, six 
different tornado outbreaks affected 16 States, and produced a 
combined damage of $29 billion and 545 fatalities. In a 14-
month span from August 2017 through October 2018, five major 
hurricanes made landfall in the U.S., not including Hurricane 
Florence, which made landfall as a category one storm, but 
caused catastrophic inland flooding impacts to the Carolinas 
from extreme rainfall.
     The 2020 hurricane season established a new record for 
most named storms, 12 of which made landfall in the U.S. The 
causes underlying these massive and rapidly increase windstorm 
losses are many, varied, and complex. Some are related to long 
term societal changes, such as the movement of population 
toward coastal areas of the U.S. Others relate to changes in 
storm activity as the result of global climate change, lack of 
understanding and predictability of surface level storm 
characteristics and their associated hazards, interactions of 
these hazards on the built environment, how to mitigate them, 
and how to effectively communicate with and educate the public 
and other stakeholders.
     Advances in recent decades in meteorology and Earth system 
science have led to great improvements in forecasting and 
warning systems for hurricanes, tornadoes, and other 
windstorms, however, large knowledge gaps remain in aspects of 
windstorm climatology and hazards near the surface. Without 
additional actions to mitigate windstorm hazards, and thereby 
reduce windstorm risks, losses due to windstorms will only 
continue to increase.
     I want to thank this Committee for its recognition of the 
necessary role for the Federal Government, and other 
organizations, in supporting windstorm impact reduction, and 
the resulting creation of NWIRP to focus on reducing the loss 
of life and property from windstorms. To address the challenges 
discussed previously, in 2018 NWIRP released its strategic 
plan, developed in concert with stakeholders across government, 
academia, and the private sector. Three overarching long term 
strategic goals have been identified, including the following. 
Improve the understanding of windstorm processes and hazards, 
improve the understanding of windstorm impacts on communities, 
and improve the windstorm resilience of communities nationwide.
     A signature NIST research activity that is emblematic of 
these three strategic goals is the current investigation of the 
effects of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The NIST Hurricane 
Maria study aims to better understand how the buildings and 
infrastructure fail, and how we can prevent such failures in 
the future. Specifically, the NIST team seeks to understand 
Hurricane Maria's multi-hazard impacts and the conditions that 
led to injuries and deaths, how critical buildings and designed 
safe areas within them performed, including their dependence on 
electricity, water, transportation, and other infrastructure, 
how emergency communications systems performed and the public's 
response to such communications, and the impacts to, and 
recovery of, selected businesses, hospitals, and schools, as 
well as the critical social functions they provide. After 
completion of the Hurricane Maria study, NIST will pursue and 
track implementation of its recommendations in an effort to 
reduce windstorm impacts nationwide.
     NWIRP continues to make strides in implementing the 
strategy put forth in its strategic plan. However, as losses 
continue to mount, there is much work to be done. We greatly 
appreciate the efforts of this Committee, and other Members of 
Congress, to support resilience programs that keep the Nation 
safe. I'm pleased to answer any questions you may have. Thank 
you.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Weaver follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
     Chairwoman Stevens. Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Weaver. And 
I see our Ranking Member Waltz is back. Would you like to 
finish your opening statement?
     Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Chairwoman. I'll submit it for the 
record. I just wanted to point out that in--you know, really a 
seminal event for Florida was Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which 
has been some time ago, but it looked like God had taken a 
lawnmower across the State. 125,000 homes were flattened, and 
since then I think our State and local officials have really 
taken some important steps in improving building codes. And, 
really, if you go to communities now, when they're hit by a 
storm, you can literally tell which homes were built after '92 
and which ones were built before '92 because of those important 
steps. So I'll submit the rest of it for the record, and let 
our witnesses continue.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Excellent. Thank you so much.
     Mr. Waltz. Sure.
     Chairwoman Stevens. And with that, we'll hear from Dr. 
Blevins next for 5 minutes of testimony.

                TESTIMONY OF DR. LINDA BLEVINS,

                   DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,

                  DIRECTORATE FOR ENGINEERING,

                  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

     Dr. Blevins. Thank you. Good morning Chairwoman Stevens, 
Ranking Member Waltz, Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of the 
Subcommittee. My name is Linda Blevins, and I'm the Deputy 
Assistant Director of the Engineering Directorate at the 
National Science Foundation. It is an honor to appear before 
you today, along with our Federal partners, to discuss the 
important role NSF plays in the National Windstorm Impact 
Reduction Program.
     NSF supports research across all fields of science, 
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and all levels 
of STEM education. This uniquely positions NSF to facilitate 
partnerships that bring diverse groups of researchers together 
with communities, private industry, and others to identify 
problems and put science, engineering, and technology to work 
to develop solutions. NSF does this across the entire country, 
tackling problems at the national, regional, and local levels, 
and ensuring that Americans from every geographic and 
demographic background participate in and benefit from NSF 
investments.
     For decades NSF has been fostering research and innovation 
to improve resilience to natural hazards, including windstorms 
like hurricanes, tornadoes, and nor'easters. NSF-funded 
researchers examine the fundamentals of how windstorms form, 
move, change, and interact with Earth, water, and climate 
forces to improve prediction and risk assessment. They examine 
the behavior of buildings, infrastructure, and the natural 
environment in the face of wind forces to enable better designs 
and mitigation options, and they examine community consequences 
and human responses to support improved planning and policy, 
emergency response, risk communication, and decision support.
     Working alongside our partners at NIST, NOAA, and FEMA, 
NSF harnesses this mindset for NWIRP. We do so through 
operating state-of-the-art research infrastructure, offering 
coordinated research programs, supporting the most promising 
ideas from across the country, and by investing in the 
development of a diverse workforce that is critical to the 
future. For example, NSF's Natural Hazards Engineering Research 
Infrastructure, or NHERI, is a national network of experimental 
facilities that provides researchers access to world-class, 
unique capabilities. This network includes NHERI's boundary-
layer wind tunnel at the University of Florida, the Wall of 
Wind at Florida International University, the Wave Research 
Laboratory at Oregon State, and a coordination office at 
Purdue. Through those and other--through these and other NHERI 
facilities, researchers study everything from hurricane force 
winds to tsunamis.
     NSF's Civic Innovation Challenge is a program where 
communities and the research enterprise collaborate to address 
community-identified priorities. Through this program, NSF 
recently funded projects that will enable the development of 
rural resilience hubs in Florida and new tools for recovery 
from storm damage in Virginia's Hampton Roads area. It is vital 
to support research as natural disasters unfold to record and 
preserve information that would otherwise be lost and 
impossible to replicate. NSF's Rapid Response Research Awards, 
or RAPIDs, do just that. Through RAPID projects, NSF has funded 
research in the immediate aftermath of several major 
windstorms, including Hurricanes Florence and Michael in 2018, 
the Easter Sunday 2020 tornadoes, and the U.S. Midwest 2020 
derecho. NSF also funds seven standing networks called Extreme 
Event Reconnaissance Networks that are ready to deploy when 
needed.
     Extreme weather research relies on basic understanding of 
weather and climate patters and trends. NSF investments in 
climate research span everything from the physical processes 
that determine hurricane intensity to tornado genesis and 
tornadic vortex structure. This research improves predictions, 
and helps communities to mitigate and adapt. Looking forward, 
the facilities, basic research, and researchers supported by 
NSF will be key to achieving our shared goal of preventing 
natural hazards, including windstorms, from becoming societal 
disasters. Investments in new areas like artificial 
intelligence (AI) will provide even better understanding.
     NSF appreciates Congress's continued support for the 
agency's mission, and its important contributions to critical 
national priorities, like NWIRP. We look forward to continuing 
to work with the Committee, and with our partner agencies. 
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I'm happy 
to answer questions.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Blevins follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you, Dr. Blevins. With that, we 
will hear from Mr. Grimm.
     Mr. Grimm. Good morning, Chair----
     Chairwoman Stevens. Mr. Grimm, are you ready for 5 minutes 
of testimony? Yeah.

                TESTIMONY OF MR. MICHAEL GRIMM,

          ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR RISK MANAGEMENT,

              FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

     Mr. Grimm. I am. Thank you very much. Good morning, Chair 
Stevens, Ranking Member Waltz, and Members of the Subcommittee. 
My name is Michael Grimm, and I am the Assistant Administrator 
for Risk Management for the Federal Insurance and Mitigation 
Administration. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss FEMA's 
supporting role within the National Windstorm Impact Reduction 
Program. FEMA's mission is helping people before, during, and 
after disasters. Mitigating the impact of windstorm damages 
from events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and derechos is an 
important aspect of this responsibility.
     Although the risk of extreme windstorm varies across the 
country, no State, tribal nation, locality, or territory is 
immune. As a result of climate change, natural disasters are 
more frequent, more intense, and more destructive. In 2020 a 
powerful derecho swept across the Midwest with hurricane force 
winds, impacting communities throughout the region. Earlier 
this year Hurricane Ida's wind speeds intensified from 85 to 
150 miles per hour in less than 24 hours due to the abnormally 
warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico. When Ida made landfall, it 
retained much of its strength as it crossed over nine States in 
4 days, leaving a path of damage from the Gulf Coast to New 
England.
     To address the nationwide risk posed by windstorm damages, 
FEMA is actively working to support the goals of the National 
Windstorm Impact Reduction Program in coordination with our 
partners, NIST, the NSF, and NOAA. For example, to improve 
windstorm safety protection measures, FEMA issued safe room 
guidance publications, leading to the development of a storm 
shelter design and construction standard that's used by design 
professionals across the Nation. NIST and FEMA coordinated and 
submitted dozens of successful change proposals to the 
standard, thereby increasing safety and reliability for 
occupants taking shelter from extreme winds.
     FEMA also participates in the International Code Council's 
building code development process to promote the inclusion of 
wind-resistant provisions. Many of FEMA's proposals to update 
the building codes are based on Mitigation Assessment Team 
findings from observations in the field after a wind event, and 
many of these field activities are conducted in coordination 
with our partner agencies. These technical field teams study 
the impact of disasters, and compile lessons learned, which can 
be applied across the Nation to other disaster-prone regions. 
These findings help architects, building officials, and 
building owners to understand why wind damage has happened, and 
to learn how to prevent those damages from reoccurring.
     One of the most effective ways to safeguard our 
communities against future natural disasters is to adopt 
hazard-resistant building codes. These codes help protect 
people both physically and financially by reducing damages to 
buildings and minimizing disruptions to daily life. Hazard-
resistant building codes are a low cost, high impact solution 
that can help break the cycles of natural disaster damage and 
reconstruction. A 2019 study by the National Institute of 
Building Sciences found that adopting the latest building codes 
saved $11 for every dollar invested. However, about 2/3 of 
communities across the country have not adopted the latest 
building codes. As our Nation's risks grow, such investments 
will become even more valuable.
     In addition, FEMA has other programs and other activities 
that address the risks posed by extreme wind hazards. For 
example, FEMA provides funding for eligible projects through 
our Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants. These grants provide 
our partners with a reliable stream of funding for larger 
mitigation projects through nationwide grant programs.
     While FEMA stands ready to respond when disasters occur, 
we recognize that the true success rests in mitigating the 
worst impacts of disasters before they happen. At FEMA, a 
cornerstone of our mitigation efforts is the Building 
Resilience Infrastructure and Communities Program, also known 
as BRIC. The BRIC Program provides a critical opportunity to 
invest in a more resilient nation, reduce disaster suffering, 
and lessen future disaster costs. Earlier this year President 
Biden visited FEMA to announce that he was increasing the 
funding available for the BRIC Program to $1 billion for the 
fiscal year '21 application period. This investment will 
protect lives and property in the face of future storms, and 
being used to support projects which improve wind resilience, 
such as the construction of community safe rooms and 
retrofitting facilities.
     Another important element of FEMA's mitigation effort is 
the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, also known as HMGP. In 
August President Biden approved more than $3.46 billion for the 
HMGP Program for the COVID-19 disaster declarations, enabling 
substantial levels of additional funding to invest in 
mitigation projects. Mitigation is particularly important for 
underserved communities that are most vulnerable to the impacts 
of climate change. In administering our mitigation programs, 
FEMA will keep equity considerations top of mind, and will 
include them in the competitive scoring process for programs 
such as BRIC. As we look to the challenges ahead, such as those 
posed by climate change and severe wind, FEMA looks forward to 
working with both our interagency program partners and Members 
of this Committee to build a more resilient nation. Thank you 
for the opportunity to testify.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Grimm follows:]
     
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
     Chairwoman Stevens. Great. Thank you so much, Mr. Grimm. 
And at this point we're going to turn to our first round of 
questions. The Chair is going to recognize herself for 5 
minutes.
     So, Dr. Weaver, in your testimony you mentioned that large 
knowledge gaps remain in aspects of windstorm climatology and 
hazards near the surface, as well as the development of tools 
for windstorm impact assessment. Can you address what is needed 
to help close these gaps, and why doing so is so important to 
mitigating the damaging effects of windstorms?
     Dr. Weaver. Sure. Thank you for that question. It's a very 
important issue right now. I think, out in the public, we 
assume when we're told the wind speeds in a hurricane, that 
that means we know the precise wind speeds, and how they're 
impacting buildings and other infrastructure at the surface. 
Actually, the opposite is true. We really don't know much about 
how the surface winds behave, let's say, in a landfalling 
hurricane, for example. Oftentimes we do not have the requisite 
observations of the wind, and sometimes even the rainfall 
environment in those storms, and so it poses significant 
challenges for us to understand precisely what buildings were 
experiencing as a hurricane makes landfall.
     There are efforts, ad hoc efforts, led by university 
scientists. There's some sporadic funding from Federal agencies 
here and there that fund scientists to actually deploy to the 
storm ahead of its landfall to set up instrumentation, or 
radars, and other kinds of observational equipment, but it's 
not a standardized and well-coordinated program. It's mostly a 
coalition of the willing. And so we've noticed that, when we 
get those measurements, they are very important for us to 
understand really what happened at the surface.
     Chairwoman Stevens. And in our 2019 hearing there was some 
discussion that barriers still exist, and more needs to be done 
to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration between the 
scientists and the engineers supported under NWIRP, obviously 
something that we're doing here today. But, Dr. Blevins, do you 
anticipate new opportunities for large-scale collaborations on 
natural hazards resilience under the new Technology, Innovation 
and Partnerships Directorate at NSF? Has that been discussed 
yet?
     Dr. Blevins. Thank you, Chairwoman. It--the new 
directorate, as proposed in the 2022 President's budget request 
for technology innovation and partnerships will be running a 
competition referred to as the Regional Innovation 
Accelerators. That's in the plan, that's described in the 
budget request, and those will be regional centers, if you 
will, that are designed to bring people together from across 
the disciplines, which is where NSF's sweet spot is, bringing 
folks in from social science, as well as engineering, 
geoscience, et cetera. And they--they'll be--I think that'll be 
the type of opportunity that you're thinking of.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yeah. That's great. And so today's 
tools, Dr. Weaver, such as field measurements, wind tunnel 
testing and modeling, and post-disaster surveys, generate an 
enormous amount of data. Do you mind explaining how NWIRP 
facilitates inter-disciplinary research on development and 
application of methods in artificial intelligence? You know, if 
there's anything you could touch on there with some of these 
new technologies and applications? We are all ears.
     Dr. Weaver. Sure. So I can't speak directly specifically 
to artificial intelligence, however, what I can tell you is 
that we've developed an inter-agency post windstorm 
coordination plan for hurricane landfall specifically at this 
point, and we're using that plan--which outlines all the 
different roles of the various Federal agencies that are 
involved in NWIRP, to structure data collection for housing a 
central data base that collects information from NOAA on the 
hazard itself, from the researchers that are out in the field 
from NSF, from FEMA, from our own deployments, and trying to 
integrate all that information so that someone who's conducting 
a post-windstorm investigation can overlay all of the social 
data with the hazard data and the building data.
     And there are other efforts out there at FEMA that has 
this model, does some similar types of things, and so we're 
looking to use that plan to bolster the data integration for 
post-windstorm investigations.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Great. And just to hop back to when we 
were first talking, or my first question here on some of the 
challenges to addressing research gaps, with just the remaining 
time available, how much do you assume that those are cost 
related, you know, if at all? I mean, are we talking about 
insufficient funding here?
     Dr. Weaver. So we typically do the best we can with the 
resources that we have to work across the different agencies. 
Our strategic plan is very comprehensive, and so, to be honest, 
it's a challenge to implement the entire strategic plan. But 
like I said, we try to prioritize and tackle what we can to the 
best of our ability.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yeah. Right. Well, thank you so much. 
With that, my 5 minutes are up, and I'm going to turn to Mr. 
Waltz for 5 minutes of questioning.
     Mr. Waltz. All right. Thank you. We'll see if the 
technology holds this time. Dr. Blevins, the NSF supports, I 
think as you mentioned, the Wall of Wind Experimental Facility 
in Florida International University. It's--as you know, it's 
capable of simulating category five hurricanes with winds over 
150 miles an hour. How is research performed at user facilities 
like the Wall of Wind then--how's that research then 
transferred to industry? How's it transferred to stakeholders 
to make improvements, to improve the resiliency of buildings 
and other forms of infrastructure to windstorm hazards?
     Dr. Blevins. Thank you, that's a great question. So in 
facilities like the Wall of Wind, or the Boundary Layer Wind 
Tunnel, we collect a lot of data on different scenarios, and 
those data are used to improve--to develop and improve 
predictive capabilities for windstorms and other type of 
events. And so, through improving those predictive capabilities 
and our simulations, we're able to actually provide input to 
those who are developing the codes and standards for the 
buildings, and so that's the pathway.
     Mr. Waltz. I guess--how is it, then--I mean, are you 
seeing it really incorporated? Are you satisfied with how it's 
used? Do you wish industry would do more, you know, if you had 
it your way kind of a thing? I'm just trying to--you know, I 
understand the great research that's going on. I'm just trying 
to better understand how it's utilized.
     Dr. Blevins. Well, it's interesting that you should 
mention industry, because also in Florida we have a relatively 
new what we call Industry-University Coordination Research 
Center, IUCRC Cooperative Research Center, and that particular 
center is at Florida International. It's called the Center for 
Wind Hazard and Infrastructure Performance, or WHIP, and the 
way that IUCRCs work is they--the university scientists and 
engineers are doing the research, but they have an advisory 
board that consists of folks from industry.
     And in this particular one it's from the construction 
industry, from the insurance industry, from the risk assessment 
industry that are sitting on this board, and those folks are 
actually selecting the basic pre-competitive research that is 
going to be done by the university researchers. And so, in that 
way, we really are working hand in hand with our stakeholders 
from industry. And early signs from that IUCRC are that there--
there's some early interest and some uptake from some of what's 
going on in the research.
     Mr. Waltz. Well, that's--no, that's great to hear, and 
particularly that the insurance industry is there. I think one 
of the issues is that we continue to--for a variety of reasons 
that are probably too complex for my couple of minutes, but for 
a variety of reasons we tend to subsidize and reinforce bad 
behavior in the aftermath of these storms, so that's 
reassuring, and I'd love to learn more about that facility, and 
who's participating, and the uptake.
     Just in the time I have remaining, Dr.--for Dr. Weaver, I 
had already mentioned, you know, the 125,000 homes from 
Hurricane Andrew, what our State and local officials in Florida 
did to develop stronger building codes, and--given that NIST 
supports research and development to improve model building 
codes and voluntary consensus standards, best practices, can 
you elaborate a little bit more on how NWIRP works with 
standards bodies like the International Code Council, and 
communities, to adopt windstorm resilient building codes to 
avoid widespread losses similar to those from Hurricane Andrew?
     Dr. Weaver. Great question. So NIST does not regulate or 
develop the actual building code. What NIST's role, 
principally, is in developing actionable science that could be 
used to guide the processes that underpin standards 
development, and code development, and implementation. So a 
great example, not necessarily related to hurricanes at this 
point, but a very new example is that out of our Joplin, 
Missouri tornado investigation, one of the recommendations was 
to develop tornado maps to guide the implementation of safe 
design for the tornado hazard.
     Now, this is the first time is ever being done. Previous 
to that event it was just act of God, you can't design for 
tornadoes. But now there are provisions that could be 
voluntarily used to design for tornadoes, and that's going to 
be coming up in the next American Society of Civil Engineers 
publication that comes out in 2022 for this guidance.
     So we work more on the scientific side. I mentioned the 
measurement science issue with the hazards that occur in the 
extreme winds in hurricanes, and we certainly look at that. We 
are mission-assigned by FEMA to produce wind maps. We've done 
it for Hurricane Irma, we've done it for Hurricane Dorian. We 
were expecting that to make landfall, as you know, as a very 
strong storm. Luckily it turned at the last minute. That 
would've been a significant disaster for us. And so we are on 
the front lines of that in many different ways.
     Mr. Waltz. Well, thanks so much, and I certainly didn't 
intend to suggest that NIST would create codes or standards. I 
think that is rightly at the local level. But I think that--no, 
that's a great example of what you just laid out. And, Madam 
Chairman, I--looks like I'm over my time, and I yield. Thank 
you so much.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yeah. That was great, thank you. And 
with that, we're going to recognize Ms. Ross, Congresswoman 
from the great State of North Carolina for 5 minutes of 
questioning.
     Ms. Ross. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and this is a 
very important issue for North Carolina, particularly for our 
coast, but we've seen more inland tornadoes, and other kinds of 
natural disasters in North Carolina. And we're no stranger to 
FEMA, so, Mr. Grimm, I wanted to start with you and ask you a 
few questions.
     The first question really has to do with the electrical 
grid, electricity grid, and how it responds to wind events, and 
wanted to know from you what you think the impact of the new 
infrastructure package, with its funding for upgrading the 
electrical grid, and making it more resistant to wind and other 
weather events, what effect that would have, and whether you 
think the funding is sufficient?
     Mr. Grimm. Well, thank you. Yeah, with regard to, you 
know, what FEMA can provide, in terms of mitigation funding and 
increasing resilience across many lifelines, including 
electrical grid in communities, very important. You know, we 
work with those communities to--I mentioned the BRIC Program in 
particular, that enables funding for lifelines for--you know, 
not only for residential and non-residential construction, but 
also for community lifelines, things like electrical grids or 
power lines, those sorts of infrastructure projects.
     So with the recent announcement of the infrastructure 
bill, of course, we're very excited to have additional 
resources made available across the government, really, to have 
a governmentwide mission and movement to make the Nation more 
resilient, honestly, across multiple natural hazards, whether 
it's windstorms, floods, earthquakes, you name it. Lifelines 
are impacted by many different types of natural hazards, and we 
need to do a better job, as a nation, addressing the hazards 
before they happen, not just after they happen, so pre-disaster 
mitigation is extraordinarily important, and getting ahead of 
that. Of course, we've shown things like, you know, building 
codes, for example, that we were just talking about----
     Ms. Ross. Um-hum.
     Mr. Grimm [continuing]. For every dollar invested, $11 in 
return, and likewise on mitigation projects, every dollar 
invested, $6 in return in general and--across the different 
hazard areas. So anything we can do to increase our investment 
ahead of disasters I think is a huge step forward.
     Ms. Ross. That's great. You anticipated my second 
question, which is the potential economic benefits of designing 
climate-resilient business. When you talk about $1 invested, 
this much in return, can you be more granular about where those 
returns come from?
     Mr. Grimm. Sure. So let me expand a little bit more on the 
building codes. I mentioned the--$1 is $11 in return. We also 
just released a codes safe study that we demonstrate $132 
billion in losses avoided through the adoption of modern 
building codes through 2040. So $132 billion, that's a huge 
investment to those losses avoided as we look for--you know, 
with climate change. When you look across the natural hazards, 
whether it's wildfire, flood, wind, earthquake, there is always 
a positive return on that investment for every dollar 
investment. You know, it ranges from--I don't have the figures 
right in front of me, but probably $4 to 11, depending on 
which, you know, when you're looking at the granular data.
     We often go in post-disaster and do what are called loss 
avoidance studies, and we look at those investments we made 
pre-disaster, so--let me give you an example. On the wind side 
of things, where we--after Marilyn--after Hurricane Marilyn in 
1995 in the USVI (United States Virgin Islands), and we 
invested hazard mitigation grant dollars--after Harvey, Irma, 
and Maria, we went back, with our inter-agency partners, on 
what is called a mitigation assessment team to look at those 
projects, and how they performed. And, indeed, we found that 
all the projects that we invested those dollars in performed 
extraordinarily well, and, you know, resulted in that cost 
savings that you're asking about.
     Ms. Ross. Thank you very much. I see my time's about to 
expire, but at some point, maybe with one of the other 
questions that you get, I'd love to hear how you make 
investments in low-income communities that might not be able to 
afford some of the more advanced engineering. And with that, 
Madam Chair, I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you so much. And with that, the 
Chair's going to recognize the Ranking Member of the Full 
Committee, Mr. Lucas, for 5 minutes of questioning.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate the 
importance of this hearing also. All of us who live on the east 
side of the Rockies, on the Great Plains, from Canada to Texas, 
understand how challenging the weather can be. Dr. Weaver, Dr. 
Blevins, we've heard about the tornado damage caused in 2011, 
and how NWIRP has changed in leadership and coordination from 
when the program was last reauthorized. Could you compare where 
we were a decade ago to where we are now, and what have we done 
well, and what's the singular area that needs to be--needs the 
most improvement, for our focus as a Committee?
     Dr. Weaver. Sure. That's a very interesting question. So 
NWIRP's inception, originally it was led by OSTP (Office of 
Science and Technology Policy). In 2015 it was moved to NIST, 
as you highlighted, and I think that gave it a permanent home, 
and also the fact that NIST is more of a user of a lot of the 
information, and is on the ground, dealing with the impacts, 
and trying to understand that, is a good pull of information 
from the other agencies, and so the coordination, I think, is 
going well in that structure.
     There are several successes that I think we've had. One is 
our Tropical Cyclone Coordination Plan. That's been very 
important to guide our activities. We've conducted a couple of 
investigations in post-windstorms. The Joplin tornado has come 
up with great recommendations. I mentioned one of those, about 
tornado design, earlier in the hearing. We're currently doing a 
hurricane Maria investigation, which is very comprehensive, and 
inter-disciplinary, and will provide many recommendations for 
the entire Nation, not just for Puerto Rico.
     As far as challenges go, I think one of the unique things 
about windstorm hazards is that we're operating in a situation 
where the climate is not stationary. So with earthquakes, you 
don't really have much changing. With some other hazards you 
don't have much changing, but in a windstorm environment we 
have this evolving climate system, and it's really hard to use 
the historical data to get an accurate portrayal of the risk 
when things are shifting so quickly, and so I think that's a 
major challenge, for us to try to understand and stay ahead of 
that with the building codes. So thank you.
     Mr. Lucas. Dr. Blevins?
     Dr. Blevins. Yes. Thank you very much. I think--to me, the 
challenges that we have are around the sharing of data. We're 
actually doing a really great job, but--around sort of 
interoperability of data sets, and the--as Dr. Weaver mentioned 
earlier, the ability for different teams going in from 
different directions, and taking data, and being able to 
coordinate all of that. The NSF sends these teams out. We are 
able to do RAPID grants for people to go out and take data when 
they're needed, and then we also have these reconnaissance 
teams that we can send out. And I think just assembling all of 
the data, and making it readily available is a big challenge.
     Mr. Lucas. Absolutely. Back to you, Dr. Weaver. Can you 
please discuss how NIST is working with NOAA to improve the 
data and methods for tornado hazard mapping and damage modeling 
through the House's program?
     Dr. Weaver. Yes. I believe you said with NOAA, right? Was 
that?
     Mr. Lucas. Um-hum. Yes.
     Dr. Weaver. Sure. Thank you for the clarification. So we 
serve on a Wind Speed Estimation Committee. We have our 
engineers that serve with NOAA, and NOAA leads this Windspeed 
Standard Estimation Committee. And, as I mentioned previously, 
one of our lead investigators from the Joplin, Missouri tornado 
is very prominent in actively supporting that committee to 
develop recommendations, and to develop science that can be 
used for national tornado design, for infrastructure, and for 
other critical facilities. And so that's principally how we 
partner with them on the tornadoes.
     Mr. Lucas. Dr. Grimm, on the remaining time I have, can 
you discuss with us, how does FEMA ensure that it meets its 
workforce demands, especially as the windstorm hazards are 
increasing in frequency and intensity? How do you get enough 
people there? Do you have enough people there?
     Mr. Grimm. Sure, thank you. Yeah, certainly the amount of 
work that FEMA has in front of us every year is a tremendous 
amount of work, whether it's responding to disasters, or 
mitigating disasters, or preparing for disasters. We have an 
outstanding cadre of resources to respond to disasters. You 
know, through--give you an example, throughout the pandemic, 
FEMA has had to really change its posture on how we do 
business, and that is including how we respond to disasters, 
and how we run programs like the Windstorm Impact Program. So, 
across the board, how do we deploy people, find new, innovative 
ways to do things?
     So, for example, we have found, you know, technology 
enables us to deliver programs. It also enables us to deliver 
our disaster assistance. We have programs such as FEMA Corps, 
groups of young people who are just excited and outstanding, 
who get out in disasters, and help our disaster survivors 
recover. A--just, you know, a wealth of challenge, but a wealth 
of programs and innovation, and being nimble on our feet to get 
people out to help survivors.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Grimm. Thank you, Madam Chair. 
My time's expired.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you. And with that, we're going 
to recognize Dr. Foster for 5 minutes of questioning.
     Mr. Foster. Thank you. Am I audible and visible here?
     Chairwoman Stevens. Perfect.
     Mr. Foster. Great. Well, thank you, Chairman Stevens, 
Ranking Member Waltz, and our witnesses for joining us here 
today, and for taking time out from what I presume are your 
detailed planning on how you're going to invest the funds from 
the bipartisan infrastructure bill that we sent you last week.
     Now, my first question is about tornado research. Dr. 
Blevins, I was particularly interested in your testimony on NSF 
tornado research. Back on June 20th a tornado swept through my 
district in suburban Chicago and caused millions of dollars of 
damage, and in some cases complete destruction to homes and 
properties in my district. Now, fortunately, no lives were 
lost, in large part because of the timely cell phone warnings 
that allowed people to seek shelter, often, you know, only 
minutes or seconds before the tornado hit. So constituents in 
my district don't have to be convinced of the value of detailed 
and timely micro-meteorological forecasts and information.
     Now, there's a program that's known as the Targeted 
Observation by Radars and UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) of 
Supercells, or TORUS, which is designed to increase 
understanding of storm structures that may be attributed to 
tornado genesis, but this was paused due to the COVID pandemic. 
Do you have any knowledge of when it is expected to resume 
research? You know, do you know how much data they were able to 
gather before putting the work on pause, and if any of it has 
yet been usable by NOAA in the interim?
     Dr. Blevins. Thank you for the question. TORUS is a very 
exciting project, as you state, that is centered at the 
University of Nebraska that involves a number of other 
institutions. And I understand that they were originally 
scheduled to do field campaigns in 2019 and 2020. They were 
able to do the field campaign in 2019, and I think they paused 
for 2020 and 2021, and my understanding is that they should 
pick back up again in 2022. And I think that is when the--that 
experiment will be able to get----
     Mr. Foster. Well, how do you generally view the future of 
this kind of intensive targeted measurement, you know, that 
follow a storm, compared to just increasing the quality and the 
density of fixed ground-based measurements?
     Dr. Blevins. I think they're going to become much more 
important as we move ahead getting the data sort of in the real 
world, and I think NSF has a really great mechanism to send 
teams out to do that. Through its RAPID funding mechanism, we 
can actually get those--we ask the PIs (principal 
investigators) to justify why they can't get the data any other 
way, other than doing this, and we--we're able to get those 
awards out sometimes as quickly as just a couple of days 
turnaround. And so NSF has really geared up. We also have--we 
have a facility that's centered out of the University of 
Washington that we call the RAPID Facility. It's part of NHERI, 
actually. And then we have CONVERGE at the University of 
Colorado, which pulls together and coordinates the data that 
comes from the use of the equipment that's provided by the 
RAPID Facility, our rapid reconnaissance teams, and others, and 
is able to coordinate it. And so we really are geared up, and 
we're ready for the increasing importance of getting these 
kinds of quick turnaround data.
     Mr. Foster. Yeah. Well, I look forward to a future where 
swarms of drones fly into supercells, and get really detailed 
information that allows us to have better predicted models.
     Dr. Blevins. Sure.
     Mr. Foster. My next question has to do with--you know, as 
our witnesses have pointed out, we're not making investments, 
despite the fact that they have a huge return on investment. I 
think Mr. Grimm mentioned an 11 to 1 return on investments. 
Though it always surprises me when there is an 11 to one return 
on investment, and private markets are not making that 
investment. Do you have any insight as to why markets have 
failed to address this issue? Why doesn't the reduction in 
insurance rates justify paying for these investments ahead of 
time? And is there anything that government could do to deal 
with this apparent market failure? This is a--yeah, I guess I 
could kick this to Mr. Grimm, since he mentioned the return on 
investment.
     Mr. Grimm. Sure, thank you. Yeah, you know, it is a real 
challenge to get investments in mitigation at all different 
levels. You know, I emphasize the importance of pre-disaster 
mitigation programs, and getting out there, and doing better 
risk communication so homeowners truly understand their risk. 
You know, whether it's from flood, or earthquake or wind, you 
know, a lot of folks think that, you know, they may not be at 
risk because they haven't experienced an event, or a loved one 
hasn't experienced an event, so it's really personal. And doing 
a better job at risk communication across the Nation, across 
the--not just the Federal Government, but at all levels, and 
teaming with the private sector--folks, for example, in the 
reinsurance arena, a very important partner that we have, who 
use data sets that we produce here at FEMA, and use data sets, 
for example, from NOAA, and other agencies.
     We recently put out something called the National Risk 
Index (NRI), and it's very unique. It's--it looks at 18 
different natural hazards across the Nation, it brings in 
social vulnerability, and it brings in resilience, and it gives 
you a risk index at the country and census level. So anybody 
can type in their address and find out what risks and hazards 
they may be at--you know, at risk from, and what actions they 
could take, what investments that they could make. So some of 
the private sector firms are leveraging our NRI, our National 
Risk Index, in their risk communications, and just doing a 
better job and--for everybody at the State, local, tribal 
territory level to understand what investments to make, see 
that return on investment in our pre-disaster mitigation.
     Mr. Foster. All right. Thank you. It looks like my time's 
expired, and I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yeah. And with that, we're going to go 
to Dr. Baird for 5 minutes of questioning.
     Mr. Baird. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens, and Ranking 
Member Waltz, and also the Committee Ranking Member Lucas. And, 
you know, I always appreciate all the witnesses taking time to 
be with us, and sharing their expertise, and their knowledge 
and background. It helps us make a better decision as we 
discuss legislation.
     So my first question really goes to all the witnesses. The 
Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure has been 
rewarded with $5 million in funding by the NSF through 2025, 
and its network coordinating office is physically located at 
Purdue University, my alma mater, serving as the 
administration's headquarters for the program's nationwide 
network of 11 research facilities. So what I'd like to know is 
can each of you speak to the importance of having an integrated 
approach to these--natural disaster research, and then how we 
might help, or what Congress might do regarding these hazard-
specific programs, and how we can better work together? So with 
that, I would start with Dr. Weaver.
     Dr. Weaver. Thank you for the question, Dr. Baird. So I 
think one of the unique things about disasters, and studying 
them, is that you need a highly inter-disciplinary team. I look 
at our current investigation of Hurricane Maria, and on that 
team you have meteorologists, climate scientists, engineers of 
different types, social scientists, epidemiologists, and so we 
have to focus on the hazard and, speaking as a meteorologist 
and climate scientist, that's where I tend to go as well, so 
I'm guilty of that.
     We tend to focus on the hazard, which is definitely 
important, and the changes in hazards are definitely important, 
but I also think we really need to be inter-disciplinary in our 
approach, and that's not easy. It's a challenge, because we all 
speak different languages, if you will, different scientific 
languages. And it's truly difficult to do that, so I would like 
to see more support, however it comes, for inter-disciplinary 
research when it comes to disasters, to nurture that 
integration.
     Mr. Baird. Well, thank you very much for that perspective. 
Dr. Blevins, would you care to elaborate on that, and the 
effect of the coordination, and the importance of coordination 
on this research?
     Dr. Blevins. Yes. Thank you, Representative Baird. I've 
actually been to the Purdue Coordinating Office. I'm actually 
Purdue alumna myself. I have----
     Mr. Baird. Yay.
     Dr. Blevins [continuing]. My Ph.D. in Mechanical 
Engineering from there, so--I was able to go in 2019 and visit, 
and I met the director, and the principal investigator, and 
they gave me a very wonderful presentation on all the great 
things that they're doing to coordinate the--all the different 
kinds of research that we're doing on earthquake, on wind, and 
on water events across the NHERI network. And I think this 
facility, this piece of the NHERI facility, really points out 
and emphasizes the strength of NSF, which is to bring all the 
disciplines together. We fund basic research across all the 
different science and engineering disciplines, and we are--one 
of our 10 big ideas is in increasing convergence research, 
which is really taking inter-disciplinary research up a notch 
to the next level to really be able to do big things that no 
discipline could do by itself.
     So the other thing that I want to point out about that 
particular location at Purdue is the education and workforce 
piece. Everything we fund at NSF integrates the--integrates 
research with education, but that particular site at Purdue 
coordinates the research experience for undergraduates program 
for NHERI, and really creates those opportunities for 
undergraduates to get interested in research and natural 
disasters. And this is really a field that can really inspire 
people. In fact, just preparing for this hearing really 
inspired me, and looking across the breadth of research in this 
area, and just the importance of it for reducing the loss of 
life and property for the Nation. So I think that that's one 
area where a facility--a site like the Purdue site can really 
contribute.
     The other thing that that site does it really engages in 
unified sort of outreach to educate the public about the work 
that's being done, and they can do that across the multiple 
hazards, which you've already mentioned. And increasingly these 
things are actually happening together, and so I think having a 
coordination office like that is really critical.
     Mr. Baird. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that 
perspective. And, Mr. Grimm, I've run out of time, and so I 
would really like to have had your perspective. With that, I 
yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Sounds like a good question for the 
record. But, with that, the Chair is going to recognize 
Congresswoman Wild for 5 minutes of questioning.
     Ms. Wild. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and I'm just so 
glad we're having this hearing. I represent Pennsylvania's 7th 
District, the Greater Lehigh Valley area. For those of you who 
aren't familiar with the geography of Pennsylvania, it's on the 
eastern side of the State, between--about midway between 
Philadelphia and Scranton, and it's an area that is very, very 
susceptible to storm-related flooding. We've got two rivers 
that, unfortunately, almost routinely flood, and, you know, the 
concept of 100-year floods have now become every couple of year 
floods in our district, so this is a really timely hearing.
     And one of the things I wanted to follow up on, Dr. 
Weaver, with regard--and--but this is really for anybody who 
wants to comment. On the interdisciplinary aspects of this kind 
of research, you know, the human element of disaster 
preparedness, and response, and recovery is so important. It's 
become really vital here in my district. And I'd love to hear 
from any of you how the National Windstorm Impact Reduction 
Program leverages social science research to accomplish the 
goals of the program to protect life and property.
     Dr. Weaver. Sure, I'm happy to start. So NWIRP writ large, 
as well as NIST as an agency, I'm speaking for both in some 
sense, we value social science. In our investigation of 
Hurricane Maria, we have several social scientists on the team. 
There are projects that underpin the larger investigation that 
focus explicitly on social impacts, social and economic 
impacts, and so we know, as I had just mentioned, that it's not 
just about hazard levels, right? It's about how people respond 
to warnings, it's about how people prepare, were they prepared? 
What did they do? What were the impacts to them, and what were 
they thinking?
     As far as NWIRP as a program, it has incorporated social 
science objectives into its strategic plan. So they're there, 
they're on paper, they're something that guides our strategy. 
And then I'll just say, the NWIRP agencies, they participate in 
several workshops that are led by social scientists in the 
natural hazard space. One I can think of is the Natural Hazard 
Center at the University of Colorado. They have an annual 
workshop, and many of our agencies figure prominently in that 
workshop. And so we're very supportive, and it's necessary to 
bring that into the fold.
     Ms. Wild. Thanks. Dr. Blevins or Mr. Grimm, any--did you 
want to respond further, or should I move on?
     Dr. Blevins. I'll--I'd like to say something. I just want 
to mention that the NSF has a whole directorate called the 
Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate, and 
they're very important partners in this work with us. They look 
at how people respond to emergency warnings, for example, 
understanding what, you know, motivates or keeps people from 
preparing their homes or their local environments to be more 
resilient to storms.
     And even, you know, recently we had a couple of RAPIDs 
that we've been funding to look at people's attitudes toward, 
for example, evacuating during the pandemic, and going to a 
shelter when we're having a pandemic, and whether they feel 
safer in their homes versus in the shelter with a lot of other 
people, even when measures are being taken in the shelters to 
socially distance, et cetera.
     So I think it's very important we--and on the flooding 
part, we also have a federally funded research and development 
center called the National Center for Atmospheric Research, or 
NCAR, that's helping develop NOAA's water model, which is very 
critical to predicting flooding events.
     Ms. Wild. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Another 
question that I have in a kind of different direction, for any 
witness that would like to answer, but I'm going to expedite my 
question, since my time's running out, what would it take to 
design buildings that are optimized for resilience to multiple 
hazards? And how might that approach be further integrated into 
approaches related to energy efficiency? And, Mr. Grimm, I 
haven't heard from you yet. You want to take that one for us?
     Mr. Grimm. Sure, absolutely. When we work together across 
the inter-agency, we absolutely look, you know, at codes in an 
all-hazards way. Energy efficiency is an aspect that can--is--
can be further developed within many codes, but looking across 
the different natural hazards, and--you know, pick a region, 
right? There's--you could be--as you pointed out, your area is 
subject to flooding, to wind hazards, to other hazards, and 
working with those communities to adopt--and not change the 
code that they adopt, right, to adopt the full code from the 
most recent set of codes, and not remove specific hazards from 
those, so that we do have a comprehensive code, it's very--one 
of the last questions previous questions talked about the gaps 
in the data, and understanding that data, and how we improve 
the codes as we move through the code cycles. We all work 
together not just in this--in the wind space, but also in the 
flood space, and in other hazards within the inter-agency, and 
advocate for those codes.
     But getting the data, and understanding that data, 
translating it into what code improvements need to be made--I 
think Dr. Weaver pointed out a number of improvements that does 
inter-agency--we've worked on in the code series it--
particularly around the research in wind. We mentioned 
Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Marilyn in the USVI, Harvey, Irma, 
Maria as well resulted in certain code changes. And, likewise, 
we'll be working in the multi-hazard space to ensure that codes 
are addressing, you know, multi-hazard for those areas and 
those geographies.
     Ms. Wild. Thank you so much. With that, my time is up, and 
I yield back, Madam Chair.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you, Congresswoman. And with 
that, the Chair is going to recognize Congressman Gonzalez for 
5 minutes of questioning.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this 
important hearing today, and thank you to our witnesses for 
sharing their expertise. As our witnesses have described, the 
negative effects windstorms have on all our communities is all 
too evident . While they vary based on region, in my home State 
of Ohio, tornadoes and storms off Lake Erie have caused great 
injury, certainly property destruction, and even death in 
recent years. I don't remember happening as much as a kid. It 
just feels like it's happening more and more often, and I 
believe the data is starting to bear that out.
     Dr. Blevins, I want to start with you, because you 
noticed--or you noted how the use of AI has already had a 
significant impact on addressing the research needs of pressing 
environmental concerns. I want you to dive deep on that for me, 
so how do you see AI playing a role in tracking future 
windstorms, and what does that technology look like today?
     Dr. Blevins. Thank you. Despite 18 months of this, I still 
can't find the unmute button. Thanks for the question. So we 
have a program called the AI Institutes--AI Research Institutes 
Program. It's a major program--it's a flagship program that 
we've been running for the last couple of years at the 
Foundation, and this creates big coalitions of folks, different 
kinds of researchers, different kinds of institutions, coming 
together to collaborate. An important one of these is--it's 
called AI2ES, and this is AI for environmental science, and 
this is--actually, out of the University of Oklahoma. It's the 
lead institution, but, of course, there are many institutions 
involved. And this is really aiming to take this--the tools of 
machine learning and artificial intelligence, and tell us more 
about what's going on with these types of storms, windstorms 
being one of them, and--one of those types.
     And so I think that--I think the community is--this 
community, disaster resilience research community, is very 
excited about bringing these tools, artificial intelligence, 
machine learning, online. I think it's going to help to take 
some of the routine determinations and work out of it, and the 
artificial intelligence could be used, and the machine 
learning, by training the models, can be used to--for us to be 
able to get to the harder parts that require the human 
intelligence to intervene that much more efficiently. So I 
think it's a--it has great potential, and the community's very 
excited about it, so I thank you for that question.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Yeah. And then what, if anything, should we 
be thinking about to help the research community leverage AI 
even more in this area? Is there something we can do from a 
data standpoint, or--I don't know. I guess I'll just turn it 
over to you. What else can we do to improve that?
     Dr. Blevins. Well, I think part of the--you know, part of 
the issue with using machine learning is having good data sets 
that are well defined, they're clean, they have well defined 
metadata and assumptions that you can make about the data sets. 
And so I think that the kinds of facilities that we have, 
through NCAR, and through NHERI, and through, you know, NIST 
and FEMA, all of us working together to get those data sets as 
clean as possible, and to constantly improve them, new 
measurement techniques, new ways of deploying them in the 
field. I think anything we can do to make the data better is 
going to make that technology really shine in making an impact 
on this problem.
     Mr. Gonzalez. And then staying with you, and I know I only 
have just a few seconds, but in your testimony you highlight 
the importance of supporting and preserving research as natural 
disasters unfold. Could you go into detail of how strengthened 
inter-agency coordination could result in a more holistic and 
efficient Federal response in gathering research for 
windstorms?
     Dr. Blevins. Well, I think we have--we have a hub that's 
called Design Safe, right, that's operated--it's led out of the 
University of Texas, and it really brings together a lot of 
different types of infrastructure--cyber infrastructure to make 
that happen. And so I--that's my----
     Mr. Gonzalez. OK. Sounds good. Well, I see my time is 
almost up, so with that, I will yield back to the Chair. Thank 
you.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you. Thank you all, our Members 
for the questions, and obviously our witnesses, for today's 
critical hearing on NWIRP, and what is obviously much needed in 
leading to its reauthorization. The purpose of today's hearing 
was to review the activities of NWIRP, including the importance 
of inter-agency collaboration, which is no easy feat, but 
obviously we've got some of the best here, and a lot of 
tremendous expertise, and so the Committee's going to clearly 
continue to consider new and evolving challenges to improve 
windstorm and windstorm impact resilience, and opportunities to 
improve this program, the NWIRP Program.
     And certainly, as we think about our large country, and 
how every State is impacted by windstorms, and has a need for 
resilience, we also want to evaluate who has access to those 
dollars. I'm here in the city of Farmington, certainly needing 
the FEMA dollars in the aftermath of the windstorm that we had 
earlier this summer, but we also think about low-income 
communities, and low-income residents in our communities, and 
who signs up, and who gets access to resources for resiliency, 
specifically as a couple of my colleagues were talking about 
insurance, and access to insurance, and the dollars for that. 
So we're going to continue to work on it, certainly the next 
phase is going to be, you know, our markup, and our ability to 
reauthorize this program. I, as Chair, really want to get there 
with this.
     And so the record's going to remain open for a couple of 
weeks, 2 weeks officially, for additional questions or 
statements from Members that they may ask of our witnesses. But 
at this time our witnesses are excused, our virtual hearing is 
now adjourned. Thank you.
     [Whereupon, at 11:21 a.m., the Subcommittee was 
adjourned.]

                               Appendix I

                              ----------                              


                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions



                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Scott Weaver

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Responses by Dr. Linda Blevins

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Responses by Mr. Michael Grimm

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                              Appendix II

                              ----------                              


                   Additional Material for the Record



            Letter submitted by Representative Haley Stevens

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

              Statement submitted by the National Oceanic
                     and Atmospheric Administration

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                 [all]