Panel gets qualified assurances on disaster preparedness

Homeland Security officials assured members of Congress Thursday that their department is ready for the current hurricane season but added that more needs to be done to prepare for other disasters, such as earthquakes, and to improve the ability of emergency responders to communicate with each other.

"I'm very comfortable where we sit going into the hurricane season," Adm. Thad Allen, the Coast Guard commandant, told the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee during a hearing.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director R. David Paulison said his agency has "improved in every area and capability" since Hurricane Katrina last year. He said FEMA has pre-positioned supplies and pre-assigned missions to other federal agencies, has contracts ready to go in the event of another hurricane disaster and has the ability to track supplies using the global positioning system.

The agency's reaction to Hurricane Ernesto last week showcased its capabilities, he said. The storm at first threatened Texas and then Florida before coming ashore in North Carolina. "We were able to adapt to that with our supplies and our personnel and follow the hurricane around," Paulison said.

George Foresman, the department's undersecretary for preparedness, said the federal government "would do well" in responding to a category 3 or 4 hurricane. But he said "significant work" still has to be done for the government to have an effective all-hazards capability, especially with regard to an earthquake along the San Andreas fault line in California. "Clearly there is more work that needs to be done," he said.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said she is concerned that emergency responders still do not have interoperable communications.

"Unless we get this fixed, I could just see this scenario happening again with good plans in place but without anybody being able to talk to anyone," said Landrieu, who is not an official member of the subcommittee but was allowed to participate in the hearing. She added that "about 20" people show up every week at her office saying they have the best communications equipment to sell to the government.

"You get 20 people a week saying they have the solution; I get 40," Foresman replied.

Allen said the "significant challenge" that still remains is interoperability between land mobile and maritime mobile communications, especially when the Coast Guard deploys with FEMA for a disaster.

Paulison said FEMA's communications capability is "not perfect" but has "significantly improved since last year." For example, he said FEMA now has the ability of not only voice communications but video communications from the field to its command centers.

"We are strongly enforcing unified command, where we have a place where information is shared," he said. But he added that the ability of emergency responders from local governments to communicate with each other across jurisdictions "is still an issue."