[Senate Hearing 111-1009] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] S. Hrg. 111-1009 EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS: WHAT THE UNITED STATES CAN LEARN FROM THE 2010 CHILEAN AND HAITIAN EARTHQUAKES ======================================================================= HEARING before the AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE, LOCAL, AND PRIVATE SECTOR PREPAREDNESS AND INTEGRATION of the COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ SEPTEMBER 30, 2010 __________ Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 63-864 WASHINGTON : 2011 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center, U.S. Government Printing Office. Phone 202�09512�091800, or 866�09512�091800 (toll-free). E-mail, [email protected]. COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada JON TESTER, Montana LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk Joyce Ward, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE, LOCAL, AND PRIVATE SECTOR PREPAREDNESS AND INTEGRATION MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio JON TESTER, Montana LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina Donny William, Staff Director Ryan Tully, Minority Staff Director Kelsey Stroud, Chief Clerk C O N T E N T S ------ Opening statement: Page Senator Pryor................................................ 1 WITNESSES Thursday, September 30, 2010 William L. Carwile, III, Associate Administrator for Response and Recovery, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security.............................................. 3 Dirk W. Dijkerman, Acting Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development.................................. 5 Cristobal Lira, Director, Committee for Earthquake and Tsunami Emergency (March-August, 2010), Reconstruction Committee (Since August, 2010), Chilean Ministry of Interior.................... 7 James M. Wilkinson, Executive Director, Central United States Earthquake Consortium.......................................... 16 Ellis M. Stanley, Sr., Vice President, Dewberry, and Director of Western Emergency Management and Homeland Security Services.... 17 Reginald DesRoches, Ph.D., Professor and Associate Chair, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.................................................... 19 Alphabetical List of Witnesses Carwile, William L. III: Testimony.................................................... 3 Prepared statement........................................... 25 DesRoches, Reginald Ph.D.: Testimony.................................................... 19 Prepared statement........................................... 87 Dijkerman, Dirk W.: Testimony.................................................... 5 Prepared statement........................................... 39 Lira, Cristobal: Testimony.................................................... 7 Prepared statement with attachment........................... 45 Stanley, Ellis M. Sr.: Testimony.................................................... 17 Prepared statement........................................... 81 Wilkinson James M.: Testimony.................................................... 16 Prepared statement........................................... 73 APPENDIX Questions and responses for the Record from: Mr. Carwile.................................................. 93 Mr. Wilkinson................................................ 97 Maps submitted by Senator Pryor from U.S. Geological Survey and FEMA........................................................... 99 Earthquake Comparison submitted by Mr. Wilkinson................. 104 Map submitted by Mr. Stanley..................................... 105 Additional document submitted for the record by Mr. Lira......... 106 EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS: WHAT THE UNITED STATES CAN LEARN FROM THE 2010 CHILEAN AND HAITIAN EARTHQUAKES ---------- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2010 U.S. Senate, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration, of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mark L. Pryor, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. Present: Senator Pryor. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR Senator Pryor. I want to go ahead and call our hearing to order. I want to thank everyone for being here. I am sorry I was a few minutes late. I got caught out in the hallway, but want to welcome everyone to the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration. We are part of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. We have a very distinguished set of panelists and witnesses today, to speak on an issue that is very important for our nation's earthquake preparedness. I want to start the hearing with a quote, and it says, ``The earthquakes cause the ground to rise and fall, bending the trees until their branches intertwined and open deep cracks in the ground. Deep seated landslides occurred along the steeper bluffs and hillsides; large areas of land were uplifted permanently; and still larger areas sank and were covered with water that erupted through fissures or craterlets. Huge waves on the Mississippi River overwhelmed many boats and washed others high onto the shore. High banks caved and collapsed into the river; sand bars and points of islands gave way; whole islands disappeared.'' This sounds like something that might be out of the Book of Revelation, but it is not. It is something that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has on their website, and it is a quote from the two series of New Madrid earthquake back in 1811 and 1812. I think a lot of times people in my part of the country feel like earthquakes are something you see on the west coast or in other countries. But we have more fault zones than just the ones in California and the other States in the west. Earthquake preparedness is something that is very important and we should make sure that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and others are on top of. We want to have this hearing today to get a sense of how prepared the United States is to handle an earthquake. The witnesses here today have traveled from all around the country, and in Mr. Lira's case, as far away as Chile, to address the ability of the United States to respond to and recover from a major earthquake. I appreciate all of you for being here, especially you, Mr. Lira, for coming such a great distance to help us. I would like to also recognize the Chilean Ambassador who is here, Ambassador Arturo--is it Fermandois? Ambassador Fermandois. Fermandois. Senator Pryor. Thank you. Welcome to the Subcommittee. It is great to have you here. We have called this diverse group of witnesses because they have taken part in the response to some of the more powerful and catastrophic earthquakes in recent history, the January 12th earthquake in Haiti and the February 27th earthquake in Chile. Both of these were similarly powerful earthquakes. However, the outcomes of the two countries' response efforts could not have been more disparate. In Haiti, we saw the worst case scenario: A very poor country with very primitive building codes and minimal response capacity. Some 230,000 people died during this event, and another 300,000 were injured. Over a million people remain homeless. I want to note that we extended an invitation to the Haitian government to send a representative here to testify today, but they still have an all-hands-on-deck response going on after January's catastrophe. A month later an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Chile. Seismologists estimate that the earthquake was so powerful that it moved the earth's figure axis by 2.7 milliarcseconds. Tsunami warnings were issued in 53 countries causing minor damage in San Diego, California, and in Japan. Despite the magnitude of this disaster, the death toll was only 521, most killed by the tsunami. These events hold extremely valuable lessons for U.S. Government officials working to develop plans for responding to a severe earthquake on American soil. Our goal is to make an American response look more like the results of Chile, rather than the results in Haiti. As we near the 100th anniversary of the 1811 and 1812 New Madrid earthquakes, we are reminded how critical planning and preparation are to mitigating against loss of life and property. The effects of the New Madrid earthquakes were spread over a vast area. Physical damage was reported as far away as Charleston, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C. In Boston, Massachusetts, which is about 1,000 miles from the epicenter, church bells rang due to the seismic vibration. Consider this: A modern major earthquake along the New Madrid fault, which covers seven States, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana, could impact up to 44 million Americans who live in that region, including some 12 million Americans who live in the highest impact zones. FEMA estimates over $70 billion in infrastructure damage, while others predict a $500 billion response and recovery effort. The potential of loss of life, damage to public and private structures, and disruption of interstate commerce is staggering. With the recent international earthquakes, we can learn valuable lessons. Our witnesses who are here today will help this Subcommittee learn some of those lessons and document those for the Committee's work and the Senate. I hope the outcome of this hearing is that it will lead to a more effective response and more effective preparation to these tragic events when they do occur. I will introduce each one of the four witnesses on this panel. We will give everyone 5 minutes for their opening statement and we will submit your written testimony for the record. Do not feel obligated to read every single word of your written testimony. You may paraphrase or skip sections, that is up to you. But try to speak under 5 minutes and then we will open the panel up for discussion and for questions. Our first witness is Bill Carwile, Associate Administrator, at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Our second witness is Dirk Dijkerman, Acting Assistant Administrator of the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development. And our next witness is Carol Chan, who is the Director for the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance at USAID. And then our last witness will be Mr. Lira. So, Mr. Carwile, would you like to lead us off? TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM L. CARWILE III,\1\ ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR RESPONSE AND RECOVERY, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY Mr. Carwile. Good morning, Chairman Pryor. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It is my privilege to discuss preparation for a whole community response to and recovery from a catastrophic earthquake. I am also prepared to discuss some of the lessons we learned from our support to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) during the Haitian earthquake response, as well as our reconnaissance work during the earthquake in Chile. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Carwile appears in the appendix on page 25. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am Bill Carwile, FEMA's Associate Administrator for Response and Recovery. I am a retired U.S. Army Colonel and former Defense Coordinating Officer (DCO) who also served as Federal Coordinating Officer (FCO), other senior emergency management positions, and I am well-aware of the immense response and recovery challenges that face survivors of a major incident like an earthquake. Such an event will require an immediate, massive, and sustained support from the whole community. The whole community, that is the Federal, State, local governments, and our many private sector and volunteer agency partners, as well as the survivors themselves. The enormous destruction in a catastrophic disaster environment requires us to focus on our number one priority: Saving and sustaining lives within the first 72 hours. The whole community must be prepared to respond in ways beyond our normal paradigms. We must seek atypical solutions and adopt a planning process that incorporates such approaches. Our planning assumptions for a catastrophic disaster are based on worst case scenarios derived from modeling and historical analysis. These are designed to challenge preparedness at all levels and enforce innovative, non- traditional solutions as part of the response strategy to such events. National earthquake planning currently includes developing a Federal Interagency Operations Plan for earthquakes. This plan is a response and short-term recovery-oriented document. It ties national, regional, and state efforts together in a capstone document that addresses how the Federal interagency will prepare for and respond to a catastrophic earthquake anywhere. This plan is closely linked to the development of the National Level Exercise (NLE) 2011, which has, as its scenario, an earthquake along the New Madrid fault seismic zone. The four FEMA regions and eight States that are in that zone are working in partnership with Federal, State, and local agencies to develop a coherent plan using our recently published Regional Planning Guide (RPG). Scenario and damage information to inform planning efforts are provided by the U.S. Geological Survey and the academic community. Regional planning and the development of operational plans are completed or underway for several other geographic areas that have high earthquake hazards, including the San Francisco Bay area and Southern California. Our Region VIII and the State of Utah are working together to develop a joint region/state catastrophic earthquake plan for the impact of an earthquake along the Wasatch fault. Region II will lead an 18-month planning effort to develop joint regional plans with Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to address a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in the Caribbean. FEMA Regions IX and X in the States of Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Idaho, and British Columbia, Canada, will work together to develop joint plans for an earthquake and tsunami addressing the earthquake and resulting tsunami occurring in the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada. All of our future planning efforts will incorporate the lessons we learned from our deployment of the National Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) teams to Haiti. These lessons include being able to achieve flexibility in deploying these large teams, how to effectively employ the dogs to find survivors, and the need to use our teams as force multipliers by organizing like teams made up of survivors or others. Our 28 Urban Search and Rescue task forces will need to be augmented in a major earthquake who are working with the Department of Defense (DOD) to train and use the National Guard as an organized force to serve as light urban search and rescue teams. Effectively and rapidly responding to and recovering from the impact of a catastrophic earthquake is one of the greatest challenges faced by the whole community. At FEMA we recognize success depends on collective and collaborative efforts of all dimensions of our society. I look forward to working with the Members of this Subcommittee and Members of Congress to address the requirements of a catastrophic earthquake or other large disaster. Sir, subject to your questions later, that concludes my briefing. Senator Pryor. Thank you. Mr. Dijkerman. TESTIMONY OF DIRK W. DIJKERMAN,\1\ ACTING ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Mr. Dijkerman. Can you hear me? Oh, great. Thank you, Chairman Pryor. We really appreciate the invitation to come to testify about earthquake preparedness and what the United States can potentially learn from some of our experiences. I appreciate that you will be putting the written testimony into the record. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Dijkerman appears in the appendix on page 39. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you commented, the earthquake in January in Haiti killed 230,000 people and displaced and disrupted the lives of another three million. Right after that, one of the good steps was that President Obama designated USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah as the United States Disaster Coordinator, and he committed the United States would provide a swift, aggressive, whole of U.S. Government response. And in that effort, USAID coordinated the efforts of a number of U.S. Government agencies, including the Department of State, Health and Human Services (HHS); Homeland Security; and, of course, our colleagues here from FEMA. I think you are probably aware that FEMA and USAID, particularly the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, have had a long relationship sharing lessons back and forth, and we can give you some of the historical lessons as well. But I will focus more on some of the more recent findings that we have had. But anyway, back to Haiti, to date we have delivered over $1.14 billion. In the first 2 months of the Haiti earthquake, we sent and delivered about $250 million quite quickly, and I am going to come back to how we did that and why. But what is also significant here is in Haiti, we had our colleagues from Chile sending a search and rescue team, helping us out and coordinating with other search and rescue teams from around the world. But about 2 months after the Haiti earthquake, as you mentioned, the earthquake in Chile struck. I think it ranks up there as one in a century-type earthquake, but there, as you noted, the impact was very much different. USAID has had a long relationship with the national office in Chile responsible for preparedness, and because of that, we were able to take our directions from the Chileans on what to do and they were able to guide us and the international community. I think it is a very strong lesson on the impact of preparedness, not only in terms of the disaster response, but also working it through the system where they came up with more rigorous building codes, but then they also implemented it, which is, perhaps, even more important than just defining the improved codes. I will let my fellow panelists go into it in much more detail. So, first, what are some of the lessons that we talk about? One, we have learned over and over again, and even in Haiti and in Pakistan, is that we can have a very small footprint, but still have a very huge and rapid impact by utilizing existing in-country relationships as force multipliers. As I said earlier, we delivered about $254 million within 2 weeks and we did that by sending out what we call our Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) that had about 34 members. But we had tapped into our existing relationships with many non- governmental organizations and United Nations agencies on the ground, who in turn had reached back to the rest of their organizations throughout the world to bring in what we needed. This obviously, our number of 34 people for USAID, did not include the 500-plus members that were brought in from search and rescue and the 20,000 military folks that were also brought in. But focusing on the resources we delivered and focusing on the fact that we used these non-governmental organizations, it gives us a couple of advantages. One, as I said, force multiplier, but two, because they are there, they immediately start helping us try to maximize the extent to which we can make sure the assistance is locally attuned to the cultural challenges and circumstances there. I know the United States is not as diverse a difference between, let us say, Haiti and the United States, but being culturally attuned is always a challenge. Now, the other point is that we, as USAID, again different from FEMA, do not implement. We implement through people. But we do keep ourselves on the ground right next to everybody else, closely monitoring, making adjustments, and issuing new grants as we go. And that is part of how we stay on top of it, and, if you will, move a fair amount of resources. This model that we use is very flexible. In Haiti, we had 34 people addressing, if you will, a caseload of up to three million people affected. Right now in Pakistan, which is being affected by a flood we have about 17 people on our DART addressing and trying to address the caseload of between 16 and 20 million people. Again, we are using the same structure and I think it has been fairly effective there to move almost $300 million in a fairly short period of time. The second lesson I would want to mention is that we are learning that the single chain of command, which we normally use, is not good enough and we have to scale it up, and here, we are actually learning from some of what FEMA has done and we are trying to make the whole of U.S. Government response a bit more comprehensive and work more on where the resources are going to come from and how we can do this. The last thing that I would point out is that we are focusing on a lesson about the technical teams that we send out. They have to be small, nimble, mobile. We need to get them up to and familiar with international standards, and a benefit like this will also help if they come in to help us in the United States. So let me stop there and thank you very much for inviting us. Senator Pryor. Thank you. Ms. Chan, you are not going to testify, as I understand it, but will be available for questions and we appreciate that. Mr. Lira, we again thank you for being here. I do not want you to feel constrained by the 5-minute rule since you have a presentation and since you have traveled such a great distance to be here. Go ahead and give us your presentation. TESTIMONY OF CHRISTOBAL LIRA,\1\ DIRECTOR, COMMITTEE FOR EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI EMERGENCY (MARCH-AUGUST, 2010), RECONSTRUCTION COMMITTEE (SINCE AUGUST, 2010), CHILEAN MINISTRY OF INTERIOR Mr. Lira. Good morning Mr. Chairman. It is an honor and a privilege for me as the Director of the Reconstruction Committee of Chile, to be here at the U.S. Senate for sharing with you the Chilean experience on how we faced the devastating February earthquake. Thank you for calling me to this hearing. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Lira appears in the appendix on page 45. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Committee of Chile, to be here at the U.S. Senate for sharing with you the Chilean experience on how we faced the devastating February earthquake. Thank you for calling me to this hearing. In this opportunity I would also like to thank the U.S. Government, the U.S. Senate, and all the people in this country that helped Chile during those difficult times. In my presentation, I would like to talk about three main topics, earthquake and tsunami impact, government reaction and organization, initiatives in place and learning captured. First of all, I will try to show you how big this emergency was and the consequence it had for our people and our economy. As you can see, this was the fifth strongest earthquake registered until now. The total loss was 14.9 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), a huge loss for our economy. Image can say a lot about what happened in our country. This image shows the island of Juan Fernandez before and after the tsunami. This image shows Talcahuano port in the south, one of the most important ports in the country. Here you can see our main highway in the city of Santiago and all the damage caused by the earthquake. A bridge, 200 kilometers south of Santiago, before and after the earthquake. This is the town of Dichato before and after the tsunami. The picture shows the Alto Rio building in Concepcion after the earthquake. Here we can see the enormous impact of the earthquake and tsunami, in all, 521 fatal losses, 56 disappeared, 370,000 destroyed houses, 73 destroyed hospitals, 3,049 destroyed and damaged schools, 1,250,000 children out of school, 221 destroyed and damaged bridges, 900 towns. Here you have an open view of the damages by sector in the economy. As I say before, it was 14.9 percent of the country's GDP. Now I am going to talk about the government reaction to this emergency and how it organized to respond and deliver the necessary solutions. The most important thing is that we started simultaneously to attend the emergency and also starting the reconstruction efforts. As you can see here, two committees were created, the first one to respond to the emergency and the second to start working in the reconstruction. The emergency committee recruited around 10 people from the private sector to work temporarily in this committee. These people continued to receive their wages from the companies where they used to work. This help from the private sector and an emergency law that made it easier to buy and deliver help was fundamental for the success of the emergency committee in a very short period. We worked in coordination with the armed forces and the Office of Emergency of the Interior Ministry (ONEMI). Also, very coordinated with a new authority, especially the regional governments. The armed forces were very important in two stages of the emergency, first, working to restore the public order that was missing after the earthquake, and second, changing their guns for tools to help to build emergency houses and remove debris from the street. That is the first stage and then they changed their guns to tools. A fundamental aspect to have permanent knowledge of the situation and deliver fast and adequate solutions was that the government worked permanently in the field, distinguishing their people with colorful red jackets so the people recognized us and talked to us and cried with us. Since the beginning of the government, we have worked together with McKinsey Company trying to have a good diagnosis of what worked well and what did not work during this emergency. I would like to share with you these learnings and how we are working to be better prepared when the next emergency comes. We have the seismological and telecommunication infrastructure. Communications were down for more than 12 hours. Sensors took more than two hours to provide the information. So we are working on investments in real time monitoring process and robust telecommunication systems with multiple backups. Issuing alarms process. Process to issue an alarm involved unclear communication protocols, multiple unnecessary decision points, and no use of mass communication channels. We are working on clear communication protocols, single responsibility for decision, and use of mass communication channels. Emergency task force. We do not have a force dedicated to help in initial evaluation of damage, nor specialized in emergency procedures. So we are developing an army emergency task force specialized in emergency procedures. Chain of command. No clear chain of command in place, too many direct reports organized by institution instead of functions, and leadership duplicity. We are working on no more than eight direct reports organized by function and single leadership. The war room dynamics. Unrestricted access, everybody sitting around the same table randomly, and press with direct access to everything. We are working on restricted area access, decision makers in one table separated from support staff in separate tables grouped by functions. Looting. Heavy looting began 18 hours after the earthquake. Procedures to deploy armed forces to ensure safety in the first hours of the emergency. But we also learned from the good things we had in place. You hear about the 600 people that died in Chile compared with Haiti. The first thing was the population knowledge. Chile's coastal population have a very good understanding of the need to evacuate in the event of any big earthquake. The second thing was the lack of fires. Chile's energy network shuts down automatically in the event of any major earthquake. It is difficult to be without light, but also without fire. And the robust civil infrastructure. Chile construction norm and developers being responsible for more than 10 years provided a civil infrastructure that was able to protect Chilean citizens overall. So also, I would like to give you some materials. You will have more information on the topics I have talked about before, a copy of the Sustainable Reconstruction Plan of Constitucion City, an example that we have there, so you can see how we have been developing a reconstruction plan since the beginning of the government. That plan takes about 1 year to develop and we do it in 4 months. Information about the Onemi, the Chilean Emergency Office, and how they are working in the prevention, response, and recovery for future emergencies. I will also give you a presentation from the Minister of Finance where you can find more information about the costs that this emergency implied for our economy, and how the government is preparing to finance these costs. And the final daily report from the Emergency Committee where you can find details about the aid delivered in the area affected by the earthquake and tsunami. I am pleased. Feel free to ask anything, other information. I would like to invite the Senators to visit us. It will be an honor to show you personally all the details in the field. Thank you very much, Senator Pryor. Senator Pryor. Thank you for your statement and your presentation. Mr. Carwile, let me start with you, if I may. Just in general terms, if you were going to grade the Federal Government right now on our preparedness for a big earthquake, wherever it may occur in our country--how would you grade us on our preparedness? Mr. Carwile. Mr. Chairman, I would probably give us a B. I think we have made great progress in the last year and a half or so with regard to building on regional and state plans. Sir, we are kind of a bottoms-up constitutionally, so through Congress's grant programs that we administered on our preparedness side of the house, we have seen some significant increases in state and local capacities for a major event. I think on my side of the house, on response recovery, we have done a lot more coherent planning with our regions and States. It occurred to me when I came back to government about 18 months ago that there has been sort of a centralization here in Washington of planning efforts, which was OK at the Federal level, but when you really have to implement them, it is down to a state and a regional level. So I think we are moving along very well. I do believe that the National Level Exercise 2011, which will be on the year anniversary of the terrible New Madrid earthquake you described, sir, will give us an opportunity to grade that preparedness a lot better than we can right now. Senator Pryor. Good. And let me ask the follow-up. You mentioned State, local, and I will throw in private sector. How would you grade the State, local, and private sector on their preparedness? Mr. Carwile. Let me start with the private sector. We have been reaching out to the private sector, actually to some folks in your home State, Bentonville, and some other folks around the country. In many ways the private sector is ahead of the government. I know that some of the large corporations have incredibly robust continuity of operations plans for their business model. But we have entered into partnerships with them to a much greater degree than we ever. Last Monday, for example, we had 60 members of both associations and corporations at FEMA headquarters to discuss not only what can the private sector do for us, where can we buy from them for survivors, but what can we, as a government, do to help them get back up and operational. So I think the private sector pieces are working well. We had included them, as well as our volunteer agency partners, into several thunderbolt exercises. Those are exercises that Administrator Fugate started when he came to office. There is no notice. We brought in the private sector and the volunteer agencies to a much greater degree. We have also established a seat, and we went through some issues with our legal folks, but we have a seat now at the National Response Coordination Center (NRCC) for a member of the private sector and is going to rotate. Right now Target has that seat, but they will represent folks in Bentonville and all the other private sector folks. So we have partnered with them much better. On the volunteer agency side, we have a tremendous relationship with the National Volunteer Organization's Active in Disasters (VOAD). They cover not only the big--the American Red Cross, Salvation Army--but a lot of the smaller volunteer agencies that are so critical to helping our survivors during the time of disasters. So that partnership between government and state and local level, as well as here at the Federal level is extremely strong. Some States have entered into relationships. Louisiana has. Texas has. I know Dave Maxwell in Arkansas has entered into--he has a very strong relationship with the private sector there. They were part of a rehearsal of a drill they had yesterday in North Little Rock. The private sector participated. It has to do with New Madrid planning. The feedback from that yesterday was great. So I think we are in much better shape. That is why Administrator Fugate has been pushing the idea of whole community, not just the Federal Government or state and local governments, but also our partners in the private and the volunteer agency sectors, sir. Senator Pryor. Good. And you witnessed the terrible earthquake down in Chile and it seems to me that they did a lot of things right before the earthquake happened that paid huge dividends when it actually occurred. Mr. Carwile. Yes. In looking at Senor Lira's slides, a lot of the things they were doing well are things that we are trying to do as far as a knowledge of the people, working with our private sector partners in the energy field. But also on the right side of the slide, some of the things that we are trying to do, one of my colleagues in the rear said, some of the organizational construct, which we have adopted are the National Management System and the Command System, to alleviate some of the duplication of efforts. I think we do that pretty well now. I happened to have been the Federal Coordinating Officer in Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi with Governor Barber, and there, with his team, the state team, we formed a unified coordination group and worked with the state and local partners down at about the county level to create division supervisors under geographic branches. So we were able to set the priorities based on Governor Barber's direction, of course, and have some unity of effort. So I saw a lot of things that we have been working on in Senor Lira's slides. Senator Pryor. One of the things in Mr. Lira's statement that struck me is that the general population has a knowledge level, about what to do and what not to do in the event of an earthquake. How are we doing in that area? Mr. Carwile. I think we have some work to do, sir. Senator Pryor. My sense is, if you are living in California, it is more something you live with every day. Mr. Carwile. That is right. I was able to speak in Kobe, Japan a couple of years ago on the anniversary of the Kobe earthquake, and in Japan, they teach children in school--we used to do it in the Cold War--a duck and cover and all that. Children know, if they feel a shake, they go to high ground. I think in California, where I have lived in the past, there is a lot more cognizance of that. I do not think we do as well in other parts of the country, and I know that Jim Wilkinson from Central United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC) is going to speak on the next panel, and Jim is doing a great job through the Earthquake Consortium of the Central United States to try to do that outreach work. I think he can probably answer that question, how we are addressing the central part of the country, a little bit better. But I think California is probably leading the way, sir. Senator Pryor. Mr. Lira, how does Chile let the general public know what to do in the event of an earthquake, how to prepare beforehand and how to handle things when the earthquake actually happens? How has your country done that? Mr. Lira. Well, we have some simulations that we do in the cities. I gave you some examples of that in the information that I sent you before. So there we work--the last one I remember in Iquique, the city, it was about 100,000 people moving in a simulation for an earthquake and tsunami. So in that, you can see it in the news, in the television, so all the people know so that after an earthquake, it is very probable that you will have a tsunami. So at 3 a.m., the people run away to the mountains, to the hills behind the cities. That is why we have only about 600 people died. Senator Pryor. Wow. Well, that education certainly has paid off. Mr. Carwile, I know that we have a large scale earthquake exercise planned for 2011. What dates will that run in 2011? Mr. Carwile. That is in May, sir. I will get back on the exact dates. Senator Pryor. OK. And I think a lot of times we make sure that our first responders are involved and our hospitals know what to do. We plan scenarios such as what if this bridge goes out and all of that is good for local law enforcement. But will part of the large scale exercise include educating the public on what to do and will the public have more awareness about the exercise? Mr. Carwile. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman, and we are providing, through our Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), some resources to the States to do that outreach, as well as working with those four consortium that are doing outreach all the time. But part of the exercise will be the education of folks through a strategic communications part of the exercise. Senator Pryor. Great. Mr. Lira, let me ask you follow-up question on that. It sounds like your preparation went well, but if you could go back and change one thing before the earthquake, and do one thing differently, what would that one thing be? Mr. Lira. Probably the war room. We have to--we are working on that war room again. We need less people working there because if you have 40 people inside a war room, of course, it is very difficult to make decisions. Senator Pryor. Right. Mr. Lira. That is why one of the things that I would like to define very clear for a future earthquake is how has to be this war room, what people must be there, how you organize the other people, the function people in a separate room. That is something that we have to work and pay strong--and also, the first impression. We need a team, a task force that goes with a helicopter and immediately goes through all the affected area and so we can know what is happening, real, because at 5 a.m., the television was saying, ``No, we do not have any risk of tsunami,'' when the tsunami was there. That is why nobody knows in that night. So we need that task force that works only looking, what is happening. That is both things that I think we have to work on for the future. Senator Pryor. Great. Well, that is helpful. Did you jot that down, Mr. Carwile? I saw you writing notes. That is good. I am glad. Mr. Dijkerman, Ms. Chan, I have not forgotten about you all, so let me ask a couple of questions. I know that, Mr. Dijkerman, you work around the world and try to be there for other countries when we provide assistance abroad. I know that you work in a lot of poor areas around the globe. We have some poor areas in this country as well. What is your impression about areas in our country, whether they be inner cities or rural areas or just places like Indian reservations, etc? Do you think that they will be hit disproportionately hard because of the poverty or do you think that is much of an issue in this country? Mr. Dijkerman. Well, one of the advantages of having spent a lot of time overseas is, I think, I almost know that better sometimes than the United States. Senator Pryor. Right. Mr. Dijkerman. So please recognize that limitation. But one of the differences that we find, if people have lower incomes, is that they have lower other resources and opportunities to cushion themselves for unforeseen circumstances, whether it be floods or earthquakes or droughts or you name it. And so, because their cushion is much smaller, the impact is much more devastating. So that is a reality that we look at. And one of the things from that we focus on, not only in focusing on saving lives, but we focus, first and foremost, on the very elemental aspects of saving lives: Getting water, getting essential medicine there, particularly for women and children, because some of those groups are the first to start suffering. And then when we talk about shelter, our immediate response efforts are very, very basic. Tents, things like that, or for water, water bladders. So we try to accommodate the fact that we have to respond all over the world with very basic commodities that can immediately start saving lives. As Bill mentioned, it is very important to start saving lives in the first 72 hours. Senator Pryor. As you work with other countries, do you try to go in before disasters happen and help them prepare? Is that part of your mission? Mr. Dijkerman. Absolutely. That is an investment that we have tried to carve out from our first responsibility of being 9-1-1. But we have, at times, been able to spend up to 20 percent of our budget, when we have been fortunate enough to not have too many disasters, to try to divert towards what we call conflict prevention and mitigation. So, for example, in Latin America, we have trained over 30,000 first responders and government officials with us, not only that we are training them, but that we work together so that when something happens, there is already an established familiarity between the groups. So in the case of Chile, the people we sent down there already knew some of the officers in the operation and we knew what they were capable of and we could just stand on the sideline and wait for directions. In other places, we do not have that depth of capacity and we have to make some investments in potentially shoring that up. But the investments that we have made just makes it simply a lot easier for when something happens. I recall, about a year ago, when we had the earthquake in Guatemala, it hit, the Guatemalans activated their service, we went there. They say, ``Hey, come on in.'' We were inside the hard wall in the war room and they were just working away and we said, ``Are you ready, do you need something?'' They said, ``No, I think we have it.'' We said, ``Great.'' But that familiarity in processes and procedures just makes the response time less. So had there been a need for us, I think we could have responded much more quickly. Senator Pryor. That is great. And you or your team spent a lot of time in Haiti as well? Mr. Dijkerman. Yes. Senator Pryor. I guess that would be an example of where you see how poverty works as a big disadvantage to an area and you get into things like building codes, etc, that they just did not have; whereas, in Chile, they have had a long history of enforcing seismic building codes. One thing that I am a little bit concerned about and you may not be able to comment on this is that building codes differ so much from area to area in the United States. My experience is that if you have an economically depressed area, they may not pay as much attention to something like a building code in order to try to get a business to locate there, as compared to some places doing better economically and that have the luxury of thinking about things like seismic building codes. Do you have any impressions on the disparities within the United States or is that just not your area? Mr. Dijkerman. That is beyond my area of expertise, but I will say the point I emphasized earlier, which is the one that really matters, is what Chile demonstrated is not only putting the building codes in place, but for me what is much more important is implementing them. What we often find in the first instances in working with other countries is it is easy to put the plan together or it is easy to identify what needs to be done. But the much more difficult task is to do the education of the population, the enforcement of the building codes. And even with doing that, there are still going to be gaps and limitations. But the key focus that we try to get at is execution of what you have decided to try to do. That is almost more important and maybe that is some of the issues that might be present here. I will let my colleague from FEMA talk. Senator Pryor. Did you have something to say about that? Mr. Carwile. I would say that the mitigation efforts in building codes and standards of both adopting and implementing, as Dirk talked about, Mr. Chairman, are critical. We work very closely through the National--we are part of the National Earthquake Reduction Program (NERP) as well as the international body that establishes codes, but it is a State by State, in some States it is by county, and you are right. In the poorer counties--I happened to be working in a southern State in a large disaster and we started talking about codes and standards and there were not any. But if you look at the difference between--we just had a major earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which no lives were lost, but they adopted very stringent building codes and standards. I think that probably contributed to saving a whole lot of lives. But it is a very important issue in terms of earthquakes. I cannot think of anything more in preparing for the population is incredibly important, our ability to respond with the government and private sectors as far as these building codes are what really are going to save lives on the front end. Senator Pryor. Right. And, Ms. Chan, I am not going to let you off the hook here. I do want to ask you one question to see if you can enlighten us on this. My understanding is, at last count, there were nearly a million people displaced in Haiti. My understanding is a lot of them are living in tent cities or some sort of makeshift housing. Does USAID continue to have a presence in Haiti? And at this point, given the scale of the disaster, what is our mission there right now? Ms. Chan. Yes. USAID has a very strong presence there, not only with our team on the ground, our Disaster Assistance Response Team, but working very closely with the USAID mission and with the State Department. It is a whole government effort working towards trying to build back livelihoods. There is a focus on, again, trying to do reconstruction and getting people out of the displacement camps. The Department of State is working very closely also with President Preval. So, I think, in essence, the overall vision is to help people build back their lives at this point. Senator Pryor. Good. I want to thank all of our witnesses on the first panel. You all have been great. What we will do is leave the record open for a couple of weeks. There are some Senators who are not here today that have expressed an interest in various aspects of earthquake preparedness. You may want to expect to get a few questions from the Subcommittee over the next few days, and we would love to get responses back. We will also put your presentations in the record. Your comments have been very helpful. I will go ahead and introduce our second panel. Thank you very much. Mr. Carwile. Thank you very much. Ms. Chan. Thank you. Mr. Lira. Mr. Chairman. Senator Pryor. Yes, sir. Mr. Lira. Only to say, again, thank you very much for calling me to this hearing, and also, thank you again for all the Americans that help us, especially some institutions like the Army, the Air Force, FEMA that is here, and USAID, the American Red Cross that was there, and all the Americans that helped us---- Mr. Lira [continuing]. Like the government designator. Thank you very much. Senator Pryor. Well, thank you. You guys have always been a good neighbor as well and we appreciate you being here because you are helping us now by letting us see the results of your planning and your operations in Chile and learn lessons from you. So thank you very much for being here. Mr. Lira. Thank you. Senator Pryor. All right. I will go ahead and bring the second panel up and our staff will swap out the name tags and set up the microphones. I will go ahead and introduce our second panel. Our first witness will be Jim Wilkerson. He is the Executive Director of the Central United States Earthquake Consortium. Our next witness is Ellis Stanley, Vice President and Director of Western Emergency Management Services at Dewberry and Dewberry brings a lot to the table. We look forward to hearing from you, Mr. Stanley. And then our last witness today will be Dr. Reginald DesRoches, Professor and Associate Chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Thank you all for being here. I appreciate your time, preparation, and effort to get here today. Mr. Wilkinson, we will lead off with you. TESTIMONY OF JAMES M. WILKINSON,\1\ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTRAL UNITED STATES EARTHQUAKE CONSORTIUM Mr. Wilkinson. Thank you, sir. First let me express my sincere thanks for the invitation to come and join you today and share my thoughts on the earthquake hazard and the risk in central United States --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Wilkinson appears in the appendix on page 73. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Earthquake hazard in the central United States has a couple unique issues that elevate this hazard to a point that is considered to be catastrophic if the right variables were to align themselves. First, that the geology allows for a very large area of influence. The seismic waves from earthquakes carry for great distances before they dissipate. This is well- documented, both historically and for current seismicity. Rather than being constrained by one felt area, the effects are commonly reported over a 10-, 15-, even 20-State area. Damage from an April 18th 4.8 event of 2008 was recorded in three States, thankfully not at a level to be significant. Had this been a magnitude 5 or greater, the outcome would have been most likely very different. The other unique issues with earthquakes in the central United States is the sequencing of large events like those of 1811 and 1812, meaning that rather than a single main shock followed by some number of aftershocks, we experience several main shocks spread over a period of time, each with their own series of aftershocks. This has been documented to have occurred in 1811, 1450, 900 A.D., as well as 2350 B.C., also supporting the fact that the events of 1811 and 1812 were not a one-time event. These unique aspects, coupled with the fact that the United States has not built with earthquakes in mind until most recently, and the fact that we have a large percentage of old and aging infrastructure has created a situation that would be truly catastrophic. But it does not stop there. There are cascading effects with the impact either from the shaking or liquefaction or both that would also have additional secondary losses to oil and gas pipelines that run through the central United States; electrical grid, which also happens to service a large portion of the north and eastern United States, including the District of Columbia; as well as impact to commerce, loss of highways, bridges, river systems, agricultural farming, and ports. I have described but a small sampling of the issues that make the seismic hazard associated in central United States a significant issue. With a hazard that presents such a daunting picture, it is easy to see how addressing it would present significant challenges. This is not your garden variety hazard. The complexity for dealing with a hazard affecting multiple States, Federal regions, make this an area that requires a strong collaborative approach from all levels of government as well as the private sector and citizens alike. While there is nothing we can do about the hazard, there is good news. The risk can be addressed, the steps can be taken to reduce that level of exposure, but there has to be a willingness to work towards that goal. A strong public awareness and educational effort is key, in combination with an aggressive mitigation program. This does not mean we have to turn away from the development of strong response and recovery plans. On the contrary, we need to be working towards a balanced approach that supports all program areas working together to make our communities safer and more responsive to future seismic events. In addition to day to day program efforts of the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP), CUSEC has been working in partnership with FEMA and a host of others for the past 4 years on a focused effort to revise and, in many cases, develop new earthquake response plans at the local, State, regional, and national levels. We will test these plans in April of next year in a multi-state, multi-regional national level exercise in order to identify any gaps which have been identified and improve on those. The exercise is one of many planned bicentennial events in observance of the 1811/1812 earthquakes. Other significant events will include the Great U.S. Shakeout, which is an earthquake drill, and various planned earthquake program training and other outreach activities. In closing, addressing earthquake risk in the central United States is not a function of one organization or governmental agency. The issue requires a comprehensive approach involving citizens, community leaders, Non-govermental organization (NGOs), as well as the private sector and many others working with state and national levels of government. Unless we improve on our abilities to work together, putting aside our programmatic and organizational differences, we will be faced with sporadic and marginal improvements and ultimately, communities less prepared to address a major earthquake. As Executive Director of the Central United States Earthquake Consortium, it has been my special honor for me to have the opportunity to share with you my thoughts concerning the earthquake threat in central United States Senator Pryor. Thank you. Mr. Stanley. TESTIMONY OF ELLIS M. STANLEY, SR.,\1\ VICE PRESIDENT, DEWBERRY; DIRECTOR OF WESTERN EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND HOMELAND SECURITY SERVICES Mr. Stanley. Chairman Pryor, thank you so much for having us here to speak to you before this Subcommittee on Earthquake Preparedness-What the United States Can Learn from the Chilean and Haitian Earthquakes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Stanley appears in the appendix on page 81. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- How a government responds after a disaster usually captures the headlines. But most often it is the role that government plays in preparing for these types of events that can be the single biggest factor in minimizing not only the event's initial toll, but also the recovery time necessary to bring a community back to a healthy functional State. In this regard, an examination of how the government of Chile responded during the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and related tsunamis is appropriate. I will also address how Southern California differs from a lot of these incidents in their preparedness. Our findings reinforced the importance of our pre-disaster relationships with all of our governmental, non-governmental, and community partners, including the private sector. Properly done, these relationships require an organizational commitment as well as a significant investment of time and personnel. The number and complexity of these relationships will vary based on local nuances. But as a general rule, it is vital to ensure active participation in disaster policy and planning and response and recovery activities at all levels. It was no surprise to learn that the areas of Chile that made the most effective use of resources were the very areas where some level of interaction had been ongoing before the earthquake. In the interest of time, I will just give some of the overall findings and ask that the rest be submitted for the record. The previous panel talked about the people's knowledge. We dub that culture of resilience. What we saw in Chile was people had resilience that they did not even know they had. For example, there were fewer lives lost in the tsunami area simply because they had been taught that if the earthquake shakes enough to knock you off your feet, move to higher ground. They did not have to wait for the government or anyone to give them signals. We also learned that they have a compulsory military, and even though they do not see that as emergency planning, it was planning that helped them to be resilient. Volunteers in Chile tend to be very resilient. They are able to work effectively with little or no direction from the national headquarters. This has been part of the reason that they were able to do so well. Some of the recommendations for improvement that we took away is that emergency plans need to be flexible and include alternative options in case primary plans are unable to be executed. That sounds simple, but so often we do not do the backup to the backup to the backup. All volunteer leadership at all levels need to know the emergency plan. Exercises need to be done on a regular basis with everybody participating. Involve local officials in regional planning as well. Perform a realistic assessment of life-essential systems such as water or emergency medicine and supplies. Personnel should be trained in the probability of core services not being available and exercise that. Personnel conducting comprehensive exercises including joint government, private sector, NGO, emergency responder, and community exercises before an incident is paramount to surviving and thriving. Individual resilience and effective networking with local partners are vital to the continued success of the community after a disaster. Education, education, education about what happens during the event is important. Emergency and earthquake professionals should work with representatives of print and broadcast media before a disaster to determine how best to serve. We are doing this in Southern California with the Great ShakeOut in which 6.8-plus million people are involved. Emergency plans need to be redundant. I have said that twice because it needs to be redundant. We need to keep doing that. Recognize that competing personal and professional demands will be made on an organization. And organizations need to plan for non-structural damage and potential evacuation. We need to recognize vulnerabilities in our communication systems and we have been talking about that since September 11, 2001. We need to explore mechanisms to encourage building owners to adhere to rigorous building codes. We need to collect all possible data for each disaster when it happens. It took the 33 Long Beach earthquake to design schools to a higher standard. It took the 71 San Fernando earthquake to design hospitals to a higher standard. What will it take to design tall, high occupancy buildings to a higher standard? Those are some of the things that we need to look at. We need to look at what are acceptable collapse rates for new buildings and who determines what that will be. And we also need to get the public involved in helping to make these decisions. Thank you very much. Senator Pryor. Thank you. Dr. DesRoches. TESTIMONY OF REGINALD DESROCHES, PH.D,\1\ PROFESSOR AND ASSOCIATE CHAIR, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, SCHOOL OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING Mr. DesRoches. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for the opportunity to come here today to testify about earthquake preparedness in the United States My testimony will highlight the risks associated with a potential catastrophic earthquake event in the United States and address the opportunities to improve infrastructure resilience. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. DesRoches appears in the appendix on page 87. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My perspective is that of one who has studied earthquakes, first as a student in California during both the 89 and 94 earthquakes, and subsequently as a professor at Georgia Tech where I focus on the earthquakes in the central and southeastern United States More recently, I have worked extensively in Haiti since the January 12, 2010 earthquake, having led a team of 28 engineers, scientists, and planners to study the effects and survey building damage in Port-au-Prince. I might add that I was born in Haiti and lost family during the earthquake event and I am committed to seeing Haiti be more resilient and moving forward. The Haiti earthquake is likely the most catastrophic natural disaster in modern times, particularly when viewed on a per capita basis. The magnitude 7 earthquake resulted in over 250,000 deaths, 300,000 injured, over a million displaced, 250,000 homes destroyed, and critical infrastructure particularly damaged. In contrast, the much larger 8.8 Chile earthquake resulted in less than 600 deaths and much fewer injured. There are numerous reasons for the differences in the outcomes. However, there is no doubt the advanced level of seismic design and preparedness in Chile compared to Haiti is a primary contributing factor to the significant differences observed between the two earthquakes. Chile has a long history of large and frequent earthquakes. Because of this history of large and frequent earthquakes, Chile has been diligent in ensuring its buildings and other infrastructure are designed according to updated seismic design codes. On the contrary, Haiti had not experienced a major earthquake in over 200 years, and therefore, was not prepared for the earthquake that struck on January 12. There are several regions in the United States that have a history of large, but infrequent earthquakes, and therefore are not prepared in terms of appropriate building designs and earthquake details. We have heard many people today talk about the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ). In addition to that, the Charleston region, Charleston, South Carolina, is also a region of large, but infrequent earthquakes. On August 31st, 1886, a large earthquake hit the Charleston region with an estimated magnitude of 7.0 that was felt along the entire East Coast. The primary risk of catastrophic earthquakes in the United States is likely failure and damage of the built infrastructure. Today the New Madrid Seismic Zone region is highly populated and densely covered with homes, commercial buildings, critical infrastructure such as bridges, pipelines, power, telecommunication systems, dams, and levees. Damage to these critical infrastructure systems would have a disastrous consequence on the regional, national, and global economies. It is expected that many of the bridges in the region, including some crossing the Mississippi, would collapse and be unuseable for weeks or longer. In addition, there would be severe interruptions to oil and gas services due to severely damaged pipelines. Such a strong earthquake would rock the entire eastern half of the country and prove devastating to a broad section of the country. A recent study by the Mid-America Earthquake Center last year estimates that nearly three-quarters of a million buildings would be damaged, 3,000 bridges would potentially collapse, 400,000 breaks and leaks to local pipelines, and $300 billion in damage, direct damage, and $600 billion in indirect losses would occur. Similar numbers came out of a study on the Charleston earthquake. The recent studies on the possibilities of catastrophic failures in the case of a large earthquake in the central and southeastern United States demonstrates the scope of the problem and reinforces the need to implement measures to reduce seismic risk. We know that there are hundreds of thousands of buildings and key critical infrastructure systems that remain at risk of a large earthquake. We cannot prevent the build-up of tectonic stress along fault lines, nor can we pinpoint the exact moment when a disastrous earthquake will strike. With the leadership of the NEHRP agencies, significant progress has been made in our understanding of the earthquake hazards in the various parts of the United States as well as the vulnerabilities associated with different types of structural systems. New design codes and guidelines have incorporated lessons learned from recent earthquakes, as well as new knowledge developed from researchers and practicing engineers in cooperation with NEHRP agencies. The transfer of scientific research successes from the NEHRP efforts in building and design codes is one important step towards preparedness in the United States. Still more needs to be done. Small investments now can yield significant savings later. The California Department of Transportation is a good example of the return on investments from retrofitted bridges. Following the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) initiated a retrofit program for bridges that was deemed vulnerable from earthquakes. These same bridges, when subjected to the 1994 and 89 earthquakes, performed extremely well with little to no damage. My main message to this panel is that it is critical that we continue to apply science and engineering knowledge to develop innovative technologies and designs to increase our earthquake preparedness. We also need to continue to enhance building codes and establish priorities for mitigation strategies that limit damage to buildings and critical infrastructure. Prioritized mitigation strategies can assist in identifying infrastructure systems that are most at risk of damage and/or failure so that we can begin developing ways to fortify them against future earthquakes. Thank you. Senator Pryor. Thank you. By the way, my understanding is they have been trying to earthquake-proof one of the bridges over the Mississippi River at Memphis. Is it the I-40 bridge? I cannot remember which one. Mr. DesRoches. Yes, sir. Senator Pryor. That is great. I am glad that they are doing that. Mr. Wilkinson, let me start with you. I am guessing that your primary focus for your group is the New Madrid fault area. Is that fair to say? Mr. Wilkinson. Primarily. It is earthquakes anywhere in the central United States, the Wabash, the East Tennessee, but New Madrid is the primary focus. Senator Pryor. And in your testimony, you gave some dates in which New Madrid quakes have been documented. What are those dates again? Mr. Wilkinson. The dates are 1450, 900 A.D., and 2350 B.C. Those were based off paleoseismic investigations of these large sand blow, sand areas you see throughout the Boot Hill in northern Arkansas. Senator Pryor. Does that mean that is the only time that they have happened? Mr. Wilkinson. That scale. There are many other earthquakes of smaller magnitude, but equivalent to the 1811 and 1812, that is the documented ones. Senator Pryor. Is there a projection or a general scientific consensus on when to expect the next one? Mr. Wilkinson. I am going out on a bit of a limb because I am not a geologist, but about every 500 years they seem to be having these larger seismic events, like 1811 and 1812. We are at the 200th period from New Madrid, 1811, so we are getting within the window that the numbers are going up. Senator Pryor. I think we have something that the other witnesses talked about as well. It is a magnitude versus frequency concern, and that is, if you are in a area where there are a lot of earthquakes, you are more sensitized to it. The building codes are probably better and there are better systems in place to handle an earthquake. But if you are in another area that may not have nearly as many earthquakes but has more severe quakes, you really may be asking for trouble. Mr. Wilkinson, you mentioned the National Level Exercise in your opening statement. I assume that you are participating in that already since there has been a lot of prep work happening. How is that going and do you think that will help our preparedness? Mr. Wilkinson. Absolutely. Ironically, we were here last week, the eight States that make up CUSEC. Our Federal partners were here working on what they call a mid-planning conference for that exercise. So we are well underway in reaching an agreement on the objectives we are going to test. One of the unique things that we have coupled with that exercise is a lead-up activity. It was referenced both in Ellis' and mine presentation about the Great ShakeOut. We have been working very closely with California to develop a ShakeOut for the central United States That is an earthquake drill that will take place on April 28 among our eight States. Not to put any competition in it, but Missouri and your folks to your north are a little ahead of us in registering for that. But our goal is a million participants. We really want to get people to understand that there are steps they can take to protect themselves. So we have added that as part of the exercise to bring greater awareness. Senator Pryor. Good. And you heard Dr. DesRoches' statement about the scenario of a New Madrid quake in terms of the number of bridges that might collapse and damage the oil and gas lines, etc. Did you want to add anything to the scenario that he painted? Mr. Wilkinson. Well, we worked very closely with the Mid- America Earthquake Center (MAEC) in development of that scenario, with our state geologists and U.S. Geological Survey, to develop what we consider to be a credible scenario. Our plans are actually built around that scenario so that again we have justification to fall back on why we did this and the expenditures we made. But he is right. We have a very old infrastructure. The modeling shows that. It shows the vulnerabilities of that. Retrofitting or fixing existing infrastructure is very costly, but building it right on the front-end, having proper building codes in place, significantly reduces that cost, and that is really what we push, to increase the building codes themselves. Senator Pryor. This is really for any of you. If, say, New Madrid has a major quake, what is the estimated loss of life? Is there an estimate on what you can expect? Anybody want to take a stab at that? Mr. Wilkinson. Well, let me pull out my cheat sheet here. Based on the estimations from the Mid-America Earthquake Center, we are looking at about, for the eight-State area, of 82,000 injuries with about 3,500 to 4,000 fatalities. That is from a magnitude 7.7 event. Now, the more probable event-we talk a lot about 1811, 1812, but the more probable event is a magnitude 6, 6.5, which is very likely in our lifetime, and it would have a multi-state impact as well. Senator Pryor. OK. But I assume that would be quite a bit smaller impact. Mr. Wilkinson. Smaller in intensity, but not as far as damage. Again, looking at the age in infrastructure and the geology of the area. Senator Pryor. And there is something about the soil there that liquefies and makes damages more likely? Do I understand that right? Mr. Wilkinson. Yes, sir. It increases the potential for amplification of the seismic waves, so infrastructure, bridges, pipelines, towers, whatever is on there, has the greater capacity to lose the ability to stand. So that is the greatest concern we have which is pretty much the entire Delta region. Senator Pryor. Mr. Stanley, do you have a sense of how our Federal Government is doing in terms of working with state and local and private sector folks about earthquake preparedness nationwide? Mr. Stanley. Yes. I think the Federal Government is working quite well. As I indicated, it is a partnership. It is a partnership on the vertical axis with the local, State, and Federal partners. It is a partnership on the horizontal axis with the private sector, the NGOs, and the community individuals themselves. So we are able to do some things relative to strong mitigation plans, looking at what the potential might be. A noted seismologist and friend indicates that it is not the earthquakes that kill people, it is the buildings and stuff in your house that fall on you that injure you. So you have the opportunity to harden your space. And when you are looking at designing exercises, when you are looking at doing non- structural education, non-structural retrofits to get people to tie down things like water heaters, you are enhancing your level of preparedness in your community. We have long had a strong relationship with government, post-September 11, 2001 especially, when we look at Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) funds. Earthquakes and hurricanes, for example, is one of the things that communities can use those funds to make sure that we keep those natural hazards in front of the community. Senator Pryor. Mr. DesRoches, do you want to comment on that? Mr. DesRoches. Yes, I can. Senator Pryor. How is the Federal Government doing and State, local, and private sectors? Mr. DesRoches. I can particularly comment on some of the Federal work in terms of some of the efforts NEHRP has made in terms of understanding what is the vulnerability of the earthquakes and the systems that work. I think the challenge we have is getting some of the States and some of the infrastructure owners to make decisions on something that probably will not happen in their lifetime, and that is something I have struggled with as an educator, is trying to get them to understand that it likely will not happen in their lifetime, but if it does, it is quite catastrophic. Senator Pryor. I have a question for you, Dr. DesRoches, about using new technology, even things like Google Earth, to help you identify vulnerabilities and potential problems. Do you want to comment on that? Mr. DesRoches. Sure. We have come a long way as far as understanding the vulnerability, both on the hazard side as well as the infrastructure stock that we have. I think Jim mentioned a little bit about the aging infrastructure in the central United States We can catalog. We have tools now where we can actually do very sophisticated risk assessment where we can look on a regional level, whether it is a city level or state level, even multi-state level, and propagate an earthquake and really get a sense of where the collapses will be, which roads are most critical in terms of the ones that would be damaged, and which ones we need to really prioritize. And so, one of the messages I have today is we cannot go about retrofitting all structures that are vulnerable in the eastern United States. It would be too expensive. It would take too long. But we do have the tools available that will tell us which ones are the most priority, which ones will actually save the most lives, which ones will result in the least disruption following an earthquake. And I think those are the tools that need to be put in the hands of those that can use them and that is what we need for moving forward. Senator Pryor. Good. I just want to say again, thank all of you all for being here. I have some more questions, I am sure my colleagues will have questions, so we are going to leave the record open for a few days. I really hope that this 2011 exercise really does bring more public awareness and education about what the public should do in the event of an earthquake and make sure that we are connecting all the dots at all the various governmental levels as well. Like I said, we will leave the record open for 2 weeks and you may get some questions from the Subcommittee. We would appreciate quick responses on those. With that, I will adjourn the hearing. Thank you. 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