Transcript of briefing by FEMA Director Paulison at the National Press Club

Transcript from Director Paulison Press Event

National Press Club – August 18, 2006

MAX STIER/Partnership for Public Service:

Our speaker today is Director Paulison. The first in a series of speakers that we're

going to have in this government after Katrina project.  We'll be hearing from
Don Powell, the reconstruction Czar next Tuesday.  Then on September 6th, we
have comptroller David Walker.  We are continuing to try to -- in the time we have left before the anniversary to also get out as much information as possible. The place to go to see that information is our website, www governmentafterkatrina.Org. Now, it's an effort on our part to move towards making our government more effective. Our belief is that the government needs to be looking less in the rearview mirror and more at the horizon. We need to make sure we are ready when the next crisis comes. We know that it's not an issue of when, but where and when, and we need to make sure our government is ready to handle whatever is around the corner here. And the government after Katrina project is to get information out about how we make government work. Now, no doubt in thinking about how to move public discourse, the media is a vital component to that effort and we have done a lot of work.  What is the media covering here and we are issuing a report today, focusing on trends of media available to you at www.Governmentafterkatrina.Org, the ten largest newspapers and a sampling of newspapers in the gulf coast region.

The top is that this media has taken this issue seriously, nearly 23,000 articles written

on the topic, and just to give you a sense of scale, in 2004, there were 11 for the four
major hurricanes that struck there's. We're seeing articles about waste, fraud and abuse.

What we're not seeing is issues of great public import such as poverty. And lessons learned.

A little over half percent of those stories focus on lessons learned. What do we need to

do to fix government going forward and we would like to see the public focus more on those issues.  We believe there are five primary lessons to call from Katrina. Good government begins with good people and that is a vital importance in a story that is rarely told. When you look at the federal government in particular, nearly half of the federal work force will be eligible to retire in the next five years. A dramatic figure When you think about the fact that we don't have a government  in the wings.  We're in trouble if we don't turn that around. The 9/11 commission report related in a very much important related issue that the quality of people is more important than the quality of the wiring diagram. Unfortunately in Washington a lot more time is spent than we need to see that change.

Number two, we need to change the paradigm of the way the government works, the
old command and control structure to the communication paradigm. We need to
see coordination communication at three different levels. First, in government response as you saw in Katrina. And we need to see greater work done and make sure that there's a collaborative effort. And we have different levels of government that have to be involved, whether it's the state, federal and local side all coming together and in disaster you see
that clearer than in virtually any other context.

Thirdly, you need to make sure the different sectors are coming together, you need to make sure that the public sector is working hand in and hand because these are resources that can come from these different entities and they need to be quarterbacks by the federal government. Number three, we need to make sure we learn not only from what went wrong, but what went right. There are a lot of things that went on quite well. That's not to say you shouldn't focus on things but one of the ways is what went right, and Katrina provides fabulous illustrations of that, 33,000 individuals rescued. Think about D.E.A., None of you would think about this, 3,000 people rescued.  U.S. Postal service, up and running, bringing communication before Fed Ex, before U.P.S.  And the story that speaks to me and intrigues
me the most, the U.S. Geological survey which managed to respond in a technological using G.P.S. to identify the source points of over 8,000 911 calls during Katrina.   And it's an amazing feat here, the landmarks were done.  The street signs were under water. So they found these people and these scientists were able through their own creative efforts to directly save 600 individuals. These are great stories. They have lessons to teach us and we need to see more focus on those positive stories.

Fourth, we need to make sure we're taking the long view. Obviously these kinds of issues don't get created overnight and they're not going to get solved overnight.   We need to make sure that we're focused on people issues in a way that allow the government to have the talent base it needs today and tomorrow.  We need to also make sure that we're focused on issues, whether it's wetland, restoration or the levees that take a long time. It's challenging in  Washington where the political appointees  focus on those long term issues. There's a mismatch between the short term leadership and the long term solution to these problems.   The comptroller general, we think about the creation of a chief management officer for some or all federal agencies, who can focus on the long term to make sure we have a government that works for us in the future.

Fifth and finally, there's a resource issue. We need to make sure we're investing in a government that allows itself to perform in a way we want to over time. The bottom line is we're going to pay now or pay later in a way we're not going to want to.  Again, what we've seen with Katrina is government failed.  We don't want to see it again. We know there will be other challenges that the government faces and we need to be investing long term in ensuring that we have the capacity to respond effectively. And that means not only money. It also means leadership attention.  A great challenge is ensuring that this issue is prioritized and that we have long term focus. That requires greater leadership and it is a good segue to our speaker for today, because we're quite fortunate to have today the new director of FEMA and the undersecretary of the department of homeland security, David Paulison who I believe has taken the right first steps in bringing government back and to begin with.  Unlike a predecessor that goes unnamed, he is a man with 30 years of experience. He began his career as a firefighter and rescue individual in Miami, Florida. He worked his way up to the ranks to become the chief of the Miami-Dade rescue department. From there, he's been
involved in international association, served with the international association of fire chiefs, the U.S. Fire administrator from 2001 to 2003 and September, 2005, he took on the acting role of the head of FEMA and has now been confirmed. So with that, I turn the podium over to David Paulison. I also want to identify one individual in the back, Tom Friedman
and Matt Lindsey who wrote the report on the media. Mr. Paulison, thank you very much.

DAVID PAULISON/FEMA Director:

Thank you for that.  I appreciate you.

(regarding cords) That reminds me of the new movie, "Snakes on a Plane." What you're doing for public service is remarkable. I appreciate the service you're doing and you clearly understand what happened in Katrina and you clearly understand where we need to go, so I want to thank you very much.  It would be remiss if I did not thank President Bush and Secretary Chertoff for their personal work in FEMA. I have the resources to do the job, the freedom that I need to rebuild this organization that has helped tremendously. And it does, because it clearly understands that what happened in Katrina has changed the facing of emergency management in this country.

We have compiled the lessons of Katrina to assess what went right and what went wrong, as you so clearly pointed out, Max. These improvements we're doing here in the United States also are reflected worldwide. We're in a weather cycle that we all know the experts are telling us.  My dear friend, Max Mayfield reminds me we're in a cycle where we're going to have a lot of hurricanes over the next few years, but we've also seen terrorist events around the world, Pakistan, the earthquakes to the bombings in London.  There are a consistent set is of principles in emergency management and how we're going to respond to these things. I think we have a paradigm shift in the way that emergency managers and the way that we're going to conduct our efforts.   What we've done in the past, what I recognized during Katrina for the last 30 years the emergency management community has waited for local community to become overwhelmed before the state steps in and we've waited for the states to become overwhelmed before the government steps in, primarily FEMA. That system obviously did not work in Katrina and that system can't continue to go on.

The federal government must be included at the partnership as we start these disasters.

We need to be there from day one. We have to be ready to support preparedness,
the response and the recovery phases of disasters. Since Katrina we have worked hard to implement the changes necessary to make this is a more vibrant organization. But before I do that, let me say a few things about this organization. FEMA has right around 2,000 full-time employees, probably smaller than most high schools in this country.  We also have a
very committed staff, a very dedicated staff, and that's what makes it easier for me to work there. We have around 10,000 specific disaster employees that we call on a basis. Headquarters into the field has over 500 years of emergency management experience combined. I told you I've been given the freedom in to bring people in to do the job. I will not bring people on that do not have the experience and the years of experience to deal with disasters in this country. We are bringing some very qualified people on to run this organization. Because of those employees, including myself, have had personal experience and sometimes victims of those disasters also, so we've seen both sides of the coin. We've been leaders on some things and victims on some of these issues. While we're not the largest agency in the federal government, we are impassioned and will remain so. We have a lot of people with valuable experience. In spite of the extraordinary criticism this agency has received the last year and quite frankly, some of it deserved. We have a lot of people with pride and experience to make this the very best organization it can be. 

To help these employees match those experiences we have developed new policies to give FEMA the resources to help meet this rapidly growing emergency in this country.  We have looked at nearly every aspect of the job before during and after hurricane Katrina and have implemented what I think are positive changes in this organization. Our key to enhancing FEMA's role more importantly, we want to make this an agency that the American people can trust and be proud of again and I think we're on the way to doing that. To reach these goals we've done several things. We've been working with congress.  The work of congress has been very valuable to us. I have to thank the Homeland Security Council who has helped us.  Not only help us pinpoint the issues that went wrong, but helped guide us how we're going to fix the organization.  Our digital system, has been revamped- that system, to help provide a better warning system across this country, not just from one system but several areas. We've purchased satellites and mobile communication equipment. But I think more importantly than that is the fact that we've put a communication system in place, a protocol to allow us to ensure information that we're going to share from one agency to another as we noticed in Katrina, it was obvious to all of us, a major breakdown in communication between the local government and the state and quite frankly, a breakdown in sharing information inside the federal government itself. We cannot tolerate that anymore. We have to work out of a unified command post and our joint field office is going to be the key to that. We have had disaster drills all the way up to the president's cabinet level to enforce this and make sure we have the discipline to maintain a unified command or we can share information, and we are sharing information on a regular basis, not just once a day, but multiple times during the day, as we do our twelve-hour planning blocks, we know what we're going to be doing, who is going to do it, who is responsible for it, and exactly what is happening on the field.

We have made significant upgrades to our system. Some of you have seen that.

That is going to help us bring that information in, disseminate it and make sure we know

exactly what's going on. The system management we have can register 200,000 victims a day. That was twice what we could do in Katrina.   Also, we’ve made improvements at FEMA's assistance program.  The way it was set up was ripe for fraud to occur.  We put a system

in place to stop and  better control that. The other one is how we're going to register people.  What happened during Katrina is we ended up with people scattered across this country.  We didn't know who they were or what their needs were. We were going to register people and put mobile registration vans out and go to the people who didn't have the ability to get to where we are. We need to go to them. That way we can make sure we have a better handle on what people's needs are and where they're located.  Our logistics have quadrupled the amount of supplies we have, but we have put a sophisticated G.P.S. tracking system in place to track those supplies so we can make sure we have the right things at the right place at the right time and make sure the states know what is going on. Our job is to deliver it to the states. The state's job is to distribute it.

Lastly, is the debris removal process. We have made it much easier for the state and the local communities to do debris removal. We've put a debris removal registry on our website. We have almost 350 contractors on there that they can choose from so instead of relying on the corps of engineers to do that, the local people can pick their people and put them in place ahead of time rather than waiting for a storm to occur. I believe the retooling will help us respond and we understand very clearly how important it is to continue to look at those lessons learned and to continue to improve this organization.  We cannot let the deaths and the suffering of those Katrina victims go in vain.  We have to take those lessons learned and make sure that this organization, primarily FEMA, but the entire federal government is capable of responding in a much more nimble and reflective way.  We are bringing FEMA into the 21st century. It's very critical to understand also that FEMA doesn't do this alone. The local communities, the state communities, also have to be -- as nimble as we are.  All response is local. Our job is it to make sure we back them up and give them the supplies they need, the funding they need and the direction they need to carry out those tasks.  We're going to make a better, a stronger FEMA.

But one thing that doesn't really concern me is the Harvard study that recently came out that only [more than 25% of the people surveyed said they would not] evacuate if they were told to do so. Quite frankly, that scares me. We cannot become complacent, as a federal government or as a state. The local communities cannot be complacent.  Most of all, as individuals we cannot become complacent. We have to prepare ourselves for these storms. There is a period of time when the government may not be able to get to you.  It is our responsibility to take care of
ourselves and our families the first few hours. There are some people who can't do that, who don't have the physical capability of taking care of themselves. Those are the ones that we should be helping. But those who can get their 72 hours of food, water, medicine and flashlight batteries takes a tremendous, tremendous load off the local first responders, off of
the state and off the federal government.  So I'm urging all Americans to make sure that you and your family prepare for any type of disaster, and it doesn't have to be at a hurricane center it could be anywhere. Look at the flooding we've had, look at the tornadoes and the brush fires we've had.  A disaster can happen anywhere.

I want to thank Max. Thank you all very much. I guess what we'll do is we're going to take questions. 

Q. Director, a question about staffing.

Max mentioned staffing the federal government as it whole is a real concern. Has either the 2,000 people that you have working right now is that the optimal staffing level or are you under where you need to be?

A. That is absolutely not the ultimate staffing level. We are looking to increase the size of this organization. But I think more importantly, and I shouldn't say more importantly, as important is bringing in the right people, especially at the leadership level. When I came in I think out of the regions we only had two that were filled by permanent staff members. The others were reacting. We filled almost all of those and the people I'm bringing in have 30 years' experience a piece, local emergency managers, state emergency managers, involved in fire or emergency management. We want to make sure we bring the people in who have done that.  It's important for employees too.  When they see us doing this, when they see us bringing those types of people in, it shows them that we are really serious about rebuilding this organization.  So Max was absolutely right.  There is an issue with people and we're hiring as quickly as we can to rebuild this organization and build it bigger than it was and much more nimble than it was.  A couple of things are going on. One, our current staffing, authorized staffing strength is right around 2400 so I want to get to that as quickly as possible. We're working with congress and Secretary Chertoff to make this organization much larger.

Q.  Alison Keys from NPR. If there were another Katrina tomorrow, how prepared
would you be?

A. I shouldn't say I think. I know we're much better prepared than we were last year. Our people are ready to go. We have quadrupled the amount of supplies we have.  We have put a tracking system in place.  If I had to nail down one important thing, it's the communication piece I talked about. Understanding what other agencies are doing and who is providing what quite frankly.   We briefed the president the day before yesterday on that particular issue.  He's been very concerned about that, very personally involved and asked us some very pointed questions at times, but yes, we are ready to go. This agency is ready to go and the federal government is ready to go.

Q.  Chris Strum with Congress Daily. What about the four contracts that you were going to rebuild? Are you still planning to rebuild those? And also, what about the trailers that you have sitting right now, what are you going to do with them?

A. First of all, the contracts have been re-bided and we ended up with six this time instead of four. So they are in place and ready to go if we have another storm. The four got the bids again and two new ones. The trailers, mobile homes, we have probably right around 9,000 left in hope, Arkansas. They're well maintained. They're sitting on gravel ground out there and it's not a bad number to have in reserve. We probably have total around this country 150-160,000 in travel trailers and mobile homes.  9,000 as a backup is not bad to have. We'll use them, but I want to keep some in reserve based on the prediction of hurricanes over the next few years, base on the amount of forest fires, having that number available is not a bad
thing to do.

Q.  Cox Newspapers. One area you didn't discuss in your items was the role of private industry, which has a huge capacity. How have you institutionalized their role?  Things like private aviation, as rescue, and you know, we could go on and on.

A. No, that's a good point. We are working very close to private industry. Homeland Security has a private [sector] office for private industry or private – “public pride and partner”.  Al Martinez sponsors that. We are working closely with them. In Louisiana, we're working with the state of Louisiana to help them with their evacuation plans and sheltering.  Part of that is using private companies to move people out of hospitals, if they have to be evacuated-- using private aircrafts to move people out. By there, we use rail to move people and also hired private bus companies to help move people out. Private industry has to play a major role in any type of disaster response. So what you're saying is right on target. People don't have  any of those things, we don't have stuff, buy stuff, quit saying stuff. We have people, we have money, we don't have a lot of things like that. So we use private industry to supply all of that.

Q. When you mention that it's a department of homeland security office, that office was existing during Katrina and was not effective at all.

A.   Well, I wouldn't say they weren't effective, I would say maybe FEMA didn't use them effectively, and we are doing that now. We have a good relationship with  Al Martinez fonts and we are speaking once or twice a week. I meet with owners of private companies on a regular basis, they bring in new ideas all the time, there's a lot of good managers out there. There's a lot of manager practices that we can bring in to FEMA to help us do a better job.

Q.  Question about the recovery.

Bill Walsh from the New Orleans Times, another question about the recovery. Congress has appropriated over $100 billion for this. FEMA has obligated tens of billions of dollars. But only about half of what FEMA has obligated has been spent. Are you satisfied with the pace of the recovery and why isn't more money being spent on the ground than it is?

A. I think for that question you need to ask the governor and the mayor. Because we have obligated every dollar they've asked for. They are there, ready for them to use. I think one of the issues, again, this is a local and a state issue. But let me give you my personal observation. What are we going to do with the lower ninth ward? What are we going to do with some of the historic buildings? Do you want to tear them down, build new stuff? A lot of decisions are being made, and we are taking them carefully. I don't think we have any un-obligated dollars sitting in our bank account. We've already transferred them over so the money is there to move over. They need to make the decisions and do that. ..

I'm comfortable with that support and couldn't ask for anything more and when we get to the hurricane season, take a deep breathe and look at what we'll do the next five or ten years in the organization, there may be other things that come up but now as far as getting ready\ for the hurricane season and putting the organization back on track I have gotten a  tremendous amount of support.

Q.  Larry Kinney. I wanted to ask you if you agreed with the partnership's finding government is not an employer of choice. Is it an issue within FEMA an effect your ability to operate or attract the people and additional people you need?  

A. I have not had any trouble attracting the top people to bring in. We've had --

I'm not familiar with that particular statement but I can tell you personally we have had no trouble attracting the right people that I want to bring in to run the organization or regional directors. I'll give you two examples, our Response Director was out of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County.  County Manager and my Recovery Director Brandon Nash, U.S. National Guard, has 40 years of military experience.  Former FEMA employee and brought him back and I'm bringing good people in,  that know what they are doing and has not had an impact on me.

Q. To follow up, the partnership did they study that talked about FEMA employees that are currently there, not those that we are trying to bring in, but currently on staff, and they ranked where are the best places to work and FEMA for some agencies came out the bottom 20% and follow-up question would be, what are you doing motivate the existing staff?

A. I would go out on a limb and say if you did the survey again you would find a different response. We'll know next year! I'll be anxious to see it.

Q. How would you do a better job this time of getting the people that have no way to get out, the last time, out, in other words, the people without transportation, the people that needed the buses, that kind of thing?

A.  We've already put on contract and hired a bus company that will manage the whole bus part of it, whether they use their own buses or own company's PSB’s buses and I've pre-positioned buses down there, sitting there, waiting and don't forget there was a short notice of evacuation for a lot of people and I don't think that will happen again. We've had serious conversations with Mayor Nagin and with the governor, and this was a wake-up call for the
entire emergency management community in this country, watching this very carefully. So, those types of calls are going to be made very quickly, as far as the need to evacuate. I don't think you'll see delays anymore and the part that concerns me is people paying attention to the evacuation call and that is why we are urging people if they are asked to evacuate to do
so, you know, immediately and -- but probably before that, they have to have a plan in play, if asked to evacuate where will they go and how will they get there and where will they stay and those are the plans all of us should have in place.

Q. CQ during a disaster will the president be hearing from you or Secretary Chertoff?

A. Both. In the presentations we have been making to the president, on how we are doing with our retooling and communications plan and all of those types of things the secretary and I both have been going there and doing that and I have also had a private conversation with the president, we went down to Miami together, the hurricane center and spent quite a bit of time writing -- riding in his car and I feel comfortable, I have access to the president. I would not go around my boss to do that. I will go through him or with him and that is the right thing to do and how I operate but has been an open relationship between myself, the secretary and the president.

Q. WTOP Radio. On a wider scale from Katrina, after recent flooding in northern Virginia, areas there were reject ford  FEMA help and a – some reports quoted some people in the federal government as saying they didn't get help because there was too much money in the area. Can you respond to that?

A. That is not the decisions we make based on what the health of somebody is, we don't pay attention to that. What we pay attention to is how much insurance is there, we cannot duplicate insurance coverage and if you have insurance coverage you don't get assistance from FEMA. But we look at the capacity of the county or the capacity of the state to deal with the issues before a declaration is signed and I give a recommendation to the president one way or the other about a declaration to be approved or not and there has to be an overwhelming event where either the local community or state cannot handle it. So, that is why the declaration is not authorized, not because there was too much money in the area. That is not the issue at all.

Q. Is the state has enough money to handle it or communities do, they are not eligible -?

A.  It is the capacity to deal with the issue. Not necessarily how much money an individual homeowner, not how much money an individual has. Look at the insurance rate across some areas, I'll give you an example, we had areas in Connecticut where we had flooding up there and it was in an area where there was almost no homeowners insurance, low poverty level so there was not –  a resource area to help rebuild and we gave a declaration for the area and in
Virginia the state was not overwhelmed and was capable of handling it and the local community was capable of handling it and no reason for the federal government to step in.

Q.  ABC:  Going back to staffing issues, you said that you are authorized for 2400 positions and you currently have 2,000. What is the -- what are the other 400 positions and why have they yet to be filled?

A. When I came into the organization we were down around less than 1700 people in the organization and we have been aggressively hiring. A lot of what has happened, also is we have a lot of people who retired after Katrina and a lot of -- lot of senior people and when we advertise those jobs a lot of middle management people moved up to those jobs and as we are advertising those, people at the bottom moved up to the middle management job and has been almost like a treadmill, hiring a lot of people and overall numbers have not been increasing an retirements are slowing down and we are filling those mid-level jobs and we'll see now hopefully very rapid increase in the number of employees inside of FEMA and want to get as much to the top as I can, I'd like to be 95%, 96% full as we go from hurricane season to hurricane season and this is a painful process but in the long term will be good for FEMA. A lot of organizations go through this, you go through a long period of time and you talked about how the federal government is coming to a point where a lot of people will be retiring and when it happens it will be painful for a period of time and overall, the long run, will be a good thing and you bring new blood and fresh people and fresh faces with new ideas and my fire department went through this and it is tough to lose the experience of senior people who have been there and done that and in the long run is a better organization. You have to get through the difficult, tough part.

Q. Biloxi Sun Herald, given the level of animosity amongst south Mississippians and other people on the gulf coast towards FEMA, how will you reestablish the trust amongst people consider your organization?

A.  Essentially to be the newest four letter word in the government, in the year two of the recovery.  And I understand it will be how we perform. You know, I could stand up there and say all I want to, how great FEMA will be and how good we'll people but until we do and improve it people will not believe it and I understand that and accept that and want to make sure the first time the organization has to respond and we hope it is a long time away, and don't want to see a hurricane go through, particularly the gulf coast after what you have been through and it will -- how we'll perform that first time out of the box, and that is what will prove it or not.

Q. David Hurley from ABC News, not belabor the point, in may you hoped to be 90% employment by the start of hurricane season and sounds like 80% and something is not going right and what is that?

A. What I explained is what is happening. A lot of our hires are internal and I am glad see people are taking promotions. And again I think we are getting ready to move on that, we are processing a lot of people and hiring people and a lot of them have been internal and still we had a lot of retirements and not where we wanted to be and no question about it and we will not give up because hurricane season is here and we're continuing on with the process and it is -- hiring in the federal government is a different process than it was at the local level. It is a much more arduous process and complicated process, especially with career people, bringing them on board. I think we are still in good shape and we have more people than last year. A lot more people than last year and also, you know, we hired a lot of what we call disaster assistance employees. Some six or -- 6 or 7,000, hired last year and those people are seasoned, have been there a long time and are working, so we can bring them back on board if we need them and I'm comfortable going into the season and again not where I want to be but I think we are so much better off than last year.

Q.  There have been flooding in Europe, everywhere, all over. Do you have any international cooperation and preparedness to share the experience from Katrina and my other question? How far money do you exactly invested for this year preparedness?

A. Let me answer the first question because I'm not sure if I have the answer to the second one, the -- I was actually in London, recently, and meeting with ken knight who is the chief of the fire brigade sharing with his staff and also London's emergency management community about lessons learned, and gave a presentation to them and they did one to us about what they learned about the bombing, next month I'm meeting with a group, the urban fire forum, a handful of fire and emergency managers from around the world meet
at the NFBA Headquarters to talk about those type of things and we share information back and forth. And I'm still heavily involved with the international fire chiefs, the international emergency managers association, and the national emergency managers association where we have the opportunity to share those. Just yesterday -- day before yesterday, we had a group from France here, wanting to look at the lessons learned and how to set up an organization similar to FEMA inside of France, and two months ago I met with people from Japan and here for the same types of reasons and look at the lessons learned and how they can apply them to their community and there is a significant international movement going on about taking lessons learned in Katrina and how to apply them, not just nationwide but worldwide and that is important that we are doing that.

Q.  Partnership likes to look at long term views on these things and we are putting a lot of reforms in to place and what are we doing to change in the administration, some of this continuous.

A. That is a really important issue. Part of the issue of where our federal government is setup, Max pointed out earlier we bring in political appointees like myself and most of the time we are here 18 months, maybe two years and then we are gone and you lose that continuity. In my regional, ten regional office  I made three of those careers, region four
out of Atlanta, region three out of Philadelphia and region nine in Oakland, California. So I'll have those -- across the country, senior people who will be here for a long time and will be the anchors of that program. And I may look at changing a couple more down the road internally.  All of my deputy division directors are all careers. We have made them all careers and so when the division directors who are political come and go the deputies are there to carry it through. So, I think it is important you have stability, and the employee system is the way to do that, more employees at higher levels in our organizations and they are there from administration to administration.

Q. With save the children, does FEMA have plans to get together with international organizations such as mine that respond to disasters worldwide and we have -- you know, there is a system, we work with the U.N. And deploy -- try to cover all bases and you talked about local agencies and non-profits, what about the international agencies.

A. We do have a system in place, to respond to international -- urban search and rescue program. Fairfax county fire department and Los Angeles county fire department and in the past my fire department, Miami-Dade can't, international response teams to -- pardon?

 We did have a lot -- large group from Canada came in and responded down to Louisiana. During the storm. Usually on the response side we have enough assistance inside the country and don't need international help and seem to do pretty well with that. So, I don't know that, you know, -- if there is a need for it and a lot of teams will respond in, a lot of very good teams out there. London has – England has one, France has one and Japan has one, and Australia has one, and some of these most experienced urban search an rescue teams in the world would be willing to respond if we needed them because we respond with them to
other natural disasters.