[Senate Hearing 113-226]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-226
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE BOSTON
MARATHON BOMBINGS: PREPARING FOR AND RESPONDING TO THE ATTACK
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 10, 2013
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
JON TESTER, Montana RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MARK BEGICH, Alaska MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota JEFF CHIESA, New Jersey
Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
John P. Kilvington, Deputy Staff Director
Jason T. Barnosky, Senior Professional Staff Member
Harlan C. Greer, Senior Professional Staff Member
Carly A. Covieo, Professional Staff Member
Mary Beth Schultz, Chief Counsel for Homeland Security
Keith B. Ashdown, Minority Staff Director
Christopher J. Barkley, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Kathryn M. Edelman, Minority Senior Investigator
Justin Rood, Director of Investigations for Homeland Security
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Lauren M. Corcoran, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Carper............................................... 1
Senator Coburn............................................... 2
Senator Johnson.............................................. 17
Senator Ayotte............................................... 20
Senator Chiesa............................................... 23
Senator Begich............................................... 25
Senator Baldwin.............................................. 28
Prepared statements:
Senator Carper............................................... 43
Senator Coburn............................................... 44
WITNESSES
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Hon. Richard Serino, Deputy Administrator, Federal Emergency
Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security........ 4
Kurt N. Schwartz, Undersecretary for Homeland Security and
Homeland Security Advisor, Director, Massachusetts Emergency
Management Agency, Massachusetts Executive Office of Public
Safety and Security............................................ 6
Edward F. Davis, III, Commissioner, Boston Police Department,
City of Boston................................................. 9
Arthur L. Kellermann, M.D., Paul O'Neill Alcoa Chair in Policy
Analysis, RAND Corporation..................................... 11
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Davis, Edward, F., III:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 65
Kellermann, Arthur L.:
Testimony.................................................... 11
Prepared statement with attachment........................... 71
Schwartz, Kurt N.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 58
Serino, Hon. Richard:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 47
APPENDIX
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record:
Mr. Serino................................................... 87
Mr. Schwartz................................................. 91
Mr. Davis.................................................... 99
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE BOSTON
MARATHON BOMBINGS: PREPARING FOR AND RESPONDING TO THE ATTACK
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 2013
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R.
Carper, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Carper, Begich, Baldwin, Coburn, Johnson,
Ayotte, and Chiesa.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER
Chairman Carper. The hearing will come to order. Good
morning, everyone. Good morning to our witnesses and those who
have joined us, those who are seated and those especially who
are standing.
A little less than 3 months ago, the city of Boston--where
my oldest son, Christopher, went to college--the city of Boston
suffered a horrific terrorist attack during the 117th Boston
Marathon. Ironically, he was there--not as a runner, although
he is a runner. He was actually there for the race. A lot of
people came in from across the country to Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) and other schools just to be
there and to help be part of the celebration. The attack
claimed the lives, as we know, of three observers and injured
close to 300 people.
As the events of April 15 unfolded, we wrestled with the
fact that we were witnessing the first successful terrorist
bombing on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks. Just as we did in the aftermath of September 11, 2001,
we must learn from the Boston Marathon bombing. That is why
this Committee has set out to unearth the lessons learned from
this act of terrorism. At a future time, this Committee will
look at whether this tragedy could have been prevented. Later
this year, we will be looking at that. However, today's hearing
will focus on the emergency response to the events that
occurred on April 15, 2013.
We will examine the preparations made by the city of Boston
and by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to deal with a crisis
of this nature. We will also assess how the city, State, and
Federal Government responded once Boylston Street was rocked by
the two homemade explosives.
For more than a decade, our country has worked to promote
effective emergency response systems that help cities and
States to mitigate the effects of a terrorist attack. In the
years since September 11, 2001, we have learned that it takes
preparation, it takes training, it takes effective leadership,
and a coordinated response plan to minimize the impact and
devastation caused by disaster.
By all accounts, Boston had many of these elements in place
on April 15, and lives were saved as a result. Today's hearing
will take a step toward identifying the lessons learned from
the preparedness for and response to the marathon attacks. We
will look at what worked, what we could have done better, and
how what happened in Boston can help prepare communities across
the country to deal effectively with emergencies.
To help shed light on the lessons learned from the attack,
we have with us three key officials who were on the ground on
the day of the attack. We are also joined by an emergency
management expert who has studied the response to the marathon
bombing.
We look forward to hearing from each of you and working
with you and others in the coming weeks and months to
strengthen our preparedness and response systems across the
United States.
As Dr. Coburn joined us, I will just close with this. My
colleagues have heard me say probably more times than they want
to count, one of my core values is to focus on excellence in
everything we do, and I like to say everything I do I know I
can do better. And the key for us is if it is not perfect, make
it better. And as well as a lot of people responded
effectively, people responded on the day of the disaster, the
tragedy in Boston, we know we can do better. And the key is for
us to figure that out, to take what lessons learned we can to
export them across the country in ways that are appropriate.
With that, Dr. Coburn, welcome.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN
Senator Coburn. Thank you, Senator Carper, and I apologize
for being late. Welcome to each of you, and thank you for what
you do. I will have a full statement for the record. I look
forward to hearing your comments and your testimony as well as
asking you some pertinent questions about what we have done in
the past, what has helped and what has not, and what has been
effective and what has not.
Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Thanks, Dr. Coburn.
Dr. Johnson--I always call him ``Dr. Johnson.'' He is not
really a doctor. He is like me. He is just a regular guy. Nice
to have you with us, Ron.
What I am going to do is briefly introduce the witnesses
and ask each of you to share with us your statement. Then we
will have others show up on our side and have some good
conversation.
Our first witness is Richard Serino--no stranger here--
Deputy Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA), and prior to this appointment, Mr. Serino served as the
chief of Boston Emergency Medical Service (EMS) and assistant
director of the Boston Public Health Commission. He served as
an incident commander for over 35 mass casualty incidents and
for all of Boston's major planned events, including the Boston
Marathon. We thank you for joining us today and for your
service. We look forward to your testimony.
Our next witness is Kurt Schwartz. Mr. Schwartz is the
Undersecretary for Homeland Security and Emergency Management
for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He is also the director
of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and
serves as the homeland security advisor to Massachusetts
Governor Deval Patrick. Prior to holding these positions, Mr.
Schwartz served as Assistant Attorney General and Chief of the
Criminal Bureau in Massachusetts. In addition to working as a
prosecutor in Massachusetts, Mr. Schwartz has also served as a
police officer and as an emergency technician. We thank you for
joining us today and for your services to the people of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Next, Mr. Ed Davis--nice to see you, Mr. Davis--currently
Commissioner of the Boston Police Department. Mr. Davis became
the Commissioner in December 2006 after serving as a
superintendent of the Lowell Police Department for 12 years.
Do they have a marathon in Lowell?
Mr. Davis. They do have racing events, sporting events, but
not a marathon.
Chairman Carper. OK. He has been in law enforcement for 35
years, and on the day of the marathon bombing in Boston, Mayor
Menino appointed Police Commissioner Ed Davis as the head of
the unified command, putting him in charge of the overall
response effort. Commissioner Davis, we want to welcome you
and, again, thank you for your service.
Our final witness is Dr. Arthur Kellermann, an expert in
disaster management. Dr. Kellermann is Vice President and
Director at the Research AND Development (RAND) Health. Prior
to holding this position, he was professor of emergency
medicine and associate dean of health policy at the Emory
School of Medicine. He was also the founding chairman of
Emory's Department of Emergency Medicine and the Center for
Injury Control at Rollins School of Public Health. Dr.
Kellermann's research at RAND Health focuses on public health
preparedness, injury prevention, and emergency health services.
Dr. Kellermann, we thank you for joining us today. I believe
Dr. Coburn and his staff recommended that you be invited as a
witness, and we are glad you could join us.
And we are glad that Senator Ayotte could join us as well.
Now we have four on our side, four on your side; I think we
are ready to go. So we are man on man, something along those
lines.
You are invited to give us your statement. Feel free to
summarize it. If you would, try to stick to about 5 minutes. If
you go way beyond that, we will have to rein you in. But your
entire statement will be made part of the record, and with
that, Mr. Serino, you are our lead-off hitter. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. RICHARD SERINO,\1\ DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR,
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Serino. Thank you. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member
Coburn, and Members of the Committee, good morning. I am
Richard Serino, Deputy Administrator of FEMA. And on behalf of
Secretary Napolitano and Administrator Craig Fugate, I welcome
the opportunity to be here to discuss the Boston Marathon
bombing. As mentioned, I was in Boston on that tragic day in
April celebrating Patriots' Day in my hometown, so I am here
today not just as the FEMA Deputy Administrator but as a
Bostonian and a former paramedic.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Serino appears in the Appendix on
page 47.
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On April 15, Patriots' Day and the Boston Marathon come
together to create a day like no other in Boston. We pause to
celebrate our heritage, and our streets fill with millions of
residents and visitors from down the block and around the
world. For most of my life, I worked those same streets for
Boston EMS, ending a 36-year career as chief of the department
in 2009.
There were many nights I went home proud of the Boston
first responder team, but never more proud of them and the
residents of my town that day in April. While in one moment we
saw terror and brutality, in the next moment we saw the
community's love and compassion. We saw our emergency medical
technicians (EMT), police officers, firefighters, paramedics,
and emergency managers spring into action and perform what they
do heroically.
As Tip O'Neill used to say, ``All politics are local.'' We
also know that all disasters are local. And Boston was no
exception. But FEMA is proud to support communities like Boston
in their efforts to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and
mitigate against whatever hazards they may face.
As the medical incident commander in Boston, as you
mentioned, for over 35 mass casualty incidents and for all of
the city's major planned events, including the marathon, I can
assure the Committee that planning and coordination at the
local, State, and Federal level played a critical role in
ensuring a well-executed response that did, in fact, save
lives. I am also here today to express and discuss how FEMA in
part played a role in making the people on the ground more
prepared that day.
On April 15, Americans witnessed the strength of the whole
community--people coming together to help each other and making
our collective response that much more effective and efficient.
Whole Community is an approach to emergency management that
reinforces the fact that FEMA is only part of the emergency
management team, that we must leverage all of our resources and
tap into the collective strength of our citizens in times of
crisis.
That April day, we saw how FEMA's approach to national
preparedness helped empower and strengthen the whole community,
including the city of Boston and the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. Through our preparedness resources, including
our training, exercise, technical assistance, and community
preparedness programs, we helped ensure that the people who
responded had the tools and the equipment to be effective.
Immediately following the event, FEMA collaborated with our law
enforcement, public safety, and Federal partners and were ready
to help when the President issued a disaster declaration for
the affected communities.
Many of the capabilities demonstrated that day in the
immediate aftermath were built, enhanced, and sustained through
FEMA's preparedness grants. As a former paramedic and chief, I
can attest to the importance of preparing our public safety and
emergency management personnel and the public for all-hazard
contingencies. Both Boston and Massachusetts invested Federal
grant funds in systems that were critical during the response,
including helping stand up an emergency patient tracking
system, a web-based application that facilitates incident
management, and the system made a difference on April 15.
Boston EMS used FEMA preparedness grants to invest in mass
casualty medical supplies and equipment. They were critical and
crucial in responding to the bombing survivors.
The Massachusetts State Police used a forward-looking
infrared imaging unit they purchased with these funds to search
for, locate, and apprehend the surviving bombing suspect. These
grants were also leveraged for onsite security and protection,
including much of the equipment that was used during the event,
such as bomb robots, X-ray equipment, and ballistic helmets and
vests.
First responders from Boston and across the country plan,
train, and exercise through support from FEMA, making them more
equipped for the communities during real-world incidents. Since
2000, thousands of Boston area responders have received
training from the Emergency Management Institute, the United
States Fire Academy (USFA), and FEMA partners. Boston also used
FEMA funds to train Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to
better integrate bomb technicians into tactical operations, a
crucial capability that was demonstrated in Boston.
Medical personnel were trained and exercised in how to
respond to a mass casualty incident. It was no accident that
not a single hospital in the city was overwhelmed with patients
in the aftermath of the bombings. It was no accident that
patients were appropriately treated, triaged, and transported
in an orderly manner to appropriate hospitals based on their
needs. All these exercise and training sessions also allowed
key personnel to develop critical relationships. As the saying
goes, you never want to be ``exchanging business cards'' at the
scene of a disaster, and people knew each other well
beforehand.
FEMA prides itself on continually improving our approach
and focusing on further strengthening collective preparedness
to meet the evolving threats. We know that we can never replace
Krystle Campbell, Lu Lingzi, Martin Richard, or Sean Collier,
whose lives were lost and we continue to mourn. We can take
some solace in the fact that our collective approach and the
years of planning we did as a Nation on the local, State, and
Federal level helped first responders on the ground that day
and, in fact, saved lives. We also owe it to those who we lost
and those who were injured to keep improving. We will work with
all the partners across this great country to honor and to
continue moving forward.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Coburn, Members of the Committee, I
look forward to answering questions.
Chairman Carper. Thank you very much for that testimony.
Mr. Schwartz.
TESTIMONY OF KURT N. SCHWARTZ,\1\ UNDERSECRETARY FOR HOMELAND
SECURITY AND HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISOR, DIRECTOR, MASSACHUSETTS
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, MASSACHUSETTS EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF
PUBLIC SAFETY AND SECURITY
Mr. Schwartz. Good morning. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member
Coburn, and Members of the Committee, on behalf of Governor
Patrick, I thank you for this opportunity to share thoughts on
the public safety response to the Boston Marathon bombings and
the ensuing manhunt that together resulted in the deaths of
four people and injuries to hundreds more.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Schwartz appears in the Appendix
on page 58.
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The response to the marathon bombings once again
demonstrates the value of our investments in local, State, and
Federal homeland security. Within seconds of the bomb blasts,
an array of personnel, resources, and capabilities--many funded
with Federal homeland security grant dollars--were mobilized
and deployed.
First responders, aided by the public, swiftly provided on-
scene emergency medical care to the injured, and EMS providers
followed established plans to triage and transport the wounded
to area trauma centers. Our trauma centers were prepared and
followed existing mass casualty plans to swiftly and
effectively treat the wounded. Indeed, at least two of our
trauma centers report that critically injured patients were in
operating rooms within just 15 to 18 minutes of receiving them
in their emergency departments.
Tactical and other specialized teams, many of which
deployed into Boston under established mutual aid agreements,
conducted chemical, biological, radiological nuclear (CBRN)
monitoring, searched for additional explosive devices, secured
our regional transit systems and other critical infrastructure,
established a large security zone, and secured the crime scene.
A forward command center was established, first on the street
and then in a nearby hotel.
Political and public safety leaders began communicating
with the public through alerting systems, social media, and
traditional media. The Boston Police, supported by the State
Police, working with our two fusion centers, immediately
launched a criminal investigation, and in only a matter of
hours combined their efforts and resources with those of the
Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) as the Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI) took charge.
The speed by which Boston's public safety agencies
responded, supported by regional, State, and Federal partners,
is a testament to outstanding leadership and smart homeland
security investments.
The Boston Marathon passes through seven cities and towns
and three counties before ending on Boylston Street in Boston.
For our local, regional, and State public safety officials, the
marathon is one of our greatest annual events, drawing close to
a million spectators, and we appropriately dedicate substantial
planning and operational resources to protect, as best we can,
the runners and spectators at the eight host cities and towns.
These extensive planning and preparedness efforts are intended
to ensure readiness to respond to any and all unexpected
hazards that threaten health, safety, or property.
On April 15, the public safety community was prepared. As
we have done for many years, a multi-agency, multi-discipline
team spent months developing the operational plans for this
year's marathon. We did worst-case scenario planning, preparing
for a wide array of incidents and events that might impact the
marathon or their communities. In early April, we conducted a
comprehensive tabletop exercise to ensure our readiness.
On race day, the State's Emergency Operations Center (EOC)
hosted an 80-person, multi-agency coordination center that was
staffed with representatives of the police, fire, and EMS
agencies of the eight cities and towns along the course, along
with a dozen other key State and Federal public safety
agencies. The Operations Center was also connected to Emergency
Operations Centers in all eight cities and towns, and first
responders along the course and command-level personnel from
all local, State, and Federal public safety agencies were using
interoperable channels on portable radios to maintain effective
communications.
Along the course, local, regional, and State tactical
teams, hazardous materials response teams, explosive ordinance
disposal teams, the National Guard Civil Support Team, mobile
command posts, and State Police helicopters were deployed as
part of an all-hazards operational plan.
In short, we were prepared, and our high levels of
preparedness were due to investments made in collaboration with
Governor Patrick's administration over the past years using
Federal homeland security grant dollars; a longstanding
commitment to multi-agency, multi-discipline, and multi-
jurisdictional training and exercises throughout the State; a
strong record of collaboration, coordination, and cooperation
by public officials and public safety leaders; an unwavering
24/7 commitment to homeland security by all local, regional,
State, and Federal public and private sector stakeholders; and
lessons learned from local, regional, and State responses to
hurricanes, tropical storms, blizzards, ice storms, floods,
tornadoes, and a massive water system failure that had resulted
in the Commonwealth receiving 16 Presidential Disaster
Declarations since 2005.
Even as we work our way through a comprehensive after-
action review process, several common themes stand out as we
assess our response. Foremost, there is a clear correlation
between the effectiveness of response operations and local,
regional, and State investments in training, exercise programs,
incident command system, building and sustaining specialized
capabilities, activating and operating emergency operations
centers, as well as our longstanding focus on developing
regional response capabilities.
There are several other key factors that contributed to the
effectiveness of response operations.
The response relied heavily on specialized capabilities
that have been built and sustained through our homeland
security grant programs.
The response to the bombings was augmented through pre-
existing mutual aid agreements.
Interoperability was a huge success story. The millions of
dollars that we have spent over the past years on
interoperability ensured effective communication.
We benefited from a history of using pre-planned events
like the marathon as real-life opportunities to exercise and
utilize our homeland security capabilities and to strengthen
personal and professional relationships.
We also benefited from investments in regional exercise
programs, such as the Urban Shield exercises conducted by the
Boston Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI).
The cooperation and collaboration across agencies,
disciplines, and jurisdictions was immediate and extraordinary.
Existing strong relationships between the Commonwealth
Fusion Center, the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC),
and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force allowed the State
Police and the Boston Police Department to quickly integrate
into the post-bombing investigation that was led by the FBI.
The support from the Federal Government was immediate and
effective. On the law enforcement side, every imaginable
Federal agency dispatched personnel and resources, and on the
emergency management side, FEMA and the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) had senior people in our command
center in Boston only hours after the bombings, including
Deputy Serino.
Local and State public safety agencies effectively
communicated with the public through social media, reverse 911
systems, press releases, press conferences, emergency alerting
Smart Phone apps; and for the first time in Massachusetts, we
utilized the new Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) Service.
And the response by the public to the bombings and the
ensuing hunt for the suspected terrorists was nothing short of
incredible. The public heeded requests and directions from
Governor Patrick, Mayor Menino, and the public safety leaders,
including the unprecedented request on April 19 that residents
of Boston, Watertown, and four other communities remain
indoors.
In closing, as previously mentioned, we are in the process
of conducting a comprehensive local, regional, and State after-
action review. At the end of this process, an After Action
Report and corrective action plans will be published. We will
continue to identify what worked well, where there is need for
improvement, and gaps that need to be addressed through
training, exercises, planning, and homeland security
investments.
Even as we move through the after-action process, I can
confidently state that our investments made with homeland
security dollars undoubtedly enhanced our capability to respond
to these tragic events.
Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for
that testimony very much.
Mr. Davis, welcome. Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF EDWARD F. DAVIS, III,\1\ COMMISSIONER, BOSTON
POLICE DEPARTMENT, CITY OF BOSTON
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn,
distinguished Members of the Committee. On behalf of Mayor
Thomas Menino, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to
testify today about the impact of the terrorist bombing at the
Boston Marathon on Patriots' Day, April 15, 2013.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Davis appears in the Appendix on
page 65.
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On that day, at 2:50 p.m., two bombs exploded 12 seconds
and 550 feet apart near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Two terrorists killed three people at the scene: 8-year-old
Martin Richard and 23-year-old Lu Lingzi, a graduate student at
Boston University in front of the Forum Restaurant; and 29-
year-old Krystle Campbell at the finish line.
There were multiple amputations. Every ambulance and police
transport vehicle available transported nearly 300 people to
world-class hospitals. Within 22 minutes, the scenes were
cleared and a 12-block perimeter was set. All 19 victims
admitted in critical condition survived due to exceptional
medical care and the use of tourniquets by civilians and first
responders.
The perpetrators were identified in video footage, and the
photos were publicly released on Thursday evening, April 19.
The release of these photos started a rapid chain of events:
the execution of MIT police officer Sean Collier; a carjacking
and pursuit that ended in Watertown that included shots fired
at my officers and explosives thrown; a shoot-out with the
bombers, leading to the critical injury of Officer Richard
Donohoe.
One terrorist, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed, and the
other, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, fled. A massive manhunt for Tsarnaev
ensued in a 20-block perimeter. This included a citywide
shelter-in-place request that began in Watertown and extended
to all of Boston, as well as house-to-house searches throughout
Watertown, the discovery and arrest of Tsarnaev in a Watertown
boat stored in a backyard.
Both terrorists were captured within 102 hours from the
time of the initial explosions. This success was the direct
result of dedicated training, an engaged and informed public,
and an unprecedented level of coordination, cooperation, and
information sharing on the line by local, State, and Federal
agencies.
I would like to thank President Obama and his
Administration, particularly the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), for the
invaluable assistance Boston received before, during, and after
this tragic event. Preparedness training provided through the
UASI and other Federal funding set a framework for multiple
jurisdictions to work with one another in a highly effective
manner. These agencies, including EMS and medical personnel,
utilized federally funded Urban Shield training exercises and
several tabletop exercises to collaborate in scenarios similar
to those that occurred during the investigation. The importance
of this training is best illustrated in the efficiency and
success of the response and subsequent investigation. These
trainings and testing procedures revealed operational issues
and allowed us to correct them prior to April 15.
UASI funding also provided highly trained analysts in the
Boston Regional Intelligence Center. They are critical to the
department's daily decisionmaking, intelligence gathering,
deployment and information flow, coordination and communication
with law enforcement and other first responders.
Boston also received important technology that would not be
possible without the Federal funding. Command posts, armored
vehicles, robots, and other safety equipment contributed to the
safety of my officers and other officers in the Boston area and
the success of the investigation.
While all agencies' trainings and equipment worked as
seamlessly as possible on the ground, it is clear that there is
a need for improvement in our communication and information
sharing with Federal partners. In the aftermath of the Boston
bombings, the FBI improved information sharing. But policies
and practices for information and intelligence sharing must be
consistent across all JTTFs. The current language of the JTTF
memorandum of understanding (MOU) should be reviewed, including
its restrictions and suggested changes to the language and
practices that members of the Major Cities Chiefs (MCC)
Association believe need to be addressed. Chiefs want to
strengthen the partnership between the Department of Justice,
the Department of Homeland Security, and the police in urban
areas.
For example, the association proposes regular briefings by
Federal agencies on any and all threats to the community. These
revisions are critical as we all work to prevent further
violent extremist attacks in this country.
We are also meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee
to examine how best to share classified threat intelligence and
other matters that I cannot address in an open hearing.
Another challenge that occurred immediately after the
explosions was the overload to the cell phone system. They were
rendered completely useless as a means of communication at the
scene. The capacity of the cell phone companies was overrun by
public usage, forcing first responders to rely exclusively on
radios. Based on this experience, satellite phone technology is
not effective because of command posts being inside.
Communications assistance from the Department of Homeland
Security is an example of how this Committee has made a
difference. The DHS Office of Emergency Communications
conducted an exercise during a previous Boston Marathon to test
and train for communications interoperability. Based on lessons
learned from this DHS assistance and funding for technology,
our emergency radio communication systems worked without
incident, even though all cell phones went down during the
crisis. In the past, police, fire, and EMS personnel would not
have been able to communicate because of different radio
systems.
I want to reiterate that law enforcement needs a common and
secure radio bandwidth and a public safety spectrum dedicated
exclusively to public safety use as it is the only way to
communicate during an event of this magnitude. We thank
Congress for approving the D Block and look forward to working
with FirstNet and the Department of Commerce to implement this
long overdue legislation.
Boston and our partner agencies rose to the challenge we
faced and in large part were successful, based on the support
and assistance from the community.
I appreciate the opportunity to discuss, reflect, and
provide lessons learned that may assist my colleagues across
the Nation and the world. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis. Dr.
Kellermann.
TESTIMONY OF ARTHUR L. KELLERMANN,\1\ M.D., PAUL O'NEILL ALCOA
CHAIR IN POLICY ANALYSIS, RAND CORPORATION
Dr. Kellermann. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, and
distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting
me here today. I am Art Kellermann. I am an emergency
physician, and I am not from Boston.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Kellermann appears in the
Appendix on page 71.
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We have all heard the adage, ``It is better''----
Chairman Carper. How about South Boston?
Dr. Kellermann. Yes, sir. [Laughter.]
We have all heard the adage that, ``It is better to be
lucky than good.'' Boston's responders were both lucky and
good. That is why so many victims survived.
Several chance factors worked to the rescuers' favor, most
notably when, where, and how the attacks occurred. But Boston's
responders were also very good. Bystanders, runners, and
spectators played a key role, particularly in the first minutes
after the attack.
A few years prior to the attack, Boston EMS, fire, and
police personnel studied how London, Madrid, Mumbai, and other
cities had handled their terrorist attacks, what they did well,
what did not go well, and they adjusted their plans to respond
to lessons learned in those cities and incorporated it into
their plan.
Boston's hospitals did a great job because they were
prepared to do a great job. They reacted with speed and
precision because everyone knew what to do. That is how
disaster plans work.
But these observations lead to an important point. The fact
that Boston was lucky and good does not mean that the next
American city that is hit will be equally lucky or equally
good. We cannot assume, based on Boston's performance, that
other U.S. cities are prepared to manage a terrorist attack of
similar, much less greater magnitude. In fact, there is ample
reason to worry.
Across the Nation, emergency room crowding is as bad as
ever. It not only limits surge capacity; it compromises patient
safety on a day-to-day basis. Some communities and some
hospitals have taken their eye off the ball, and not every
community has the spirit of Boston where health and public
safety work together as a team.
Now, disaster preparedness is largely a State and local
responsibility, but the Federal Government has an important
role to play. Your letter of invitation asked that I
specifically comment on two areas: research and grantmaking. I
will address research first and then grants.
Last year, RAND published the first ever inventory of
national health security research funded by civilian agencies
of the U.S. Government. We found that the current portfolio is
heavily skewed toward biological threats. Two-thirds of the
studies, a thousand different projects, address that topic,
while natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and
tornadoes were the focus of only 10 percent of studies.
Terrorist bombings, 4 percent.
One reason for the heavy coverage of one threat versus the
other is that the agencies today do not have a simple way to
determine who is funding what or to prioritize which questions
are most urgent for responders in the field. As a result, we
are not getting top value for our dollar.
Now, RAND's work has been largely concentrated in HHS
rather than DHS, so I cannot speak specifically to DHS'
approach. But I can tell you based on our prior work and
experience with grants that performance measures that focus on
what has been bought and what has been taught are not as
useful, by and large, as those that measure whether States and
municipalities are building the core capabilities they need to
respond to a disaster or a large-scale attack.
Now, let me cite an example from the world of public
health. It is one thing to ask States and municipalities to
self-report if they have established a 24-hour-a-day dedicated
phone line that health care workers can call to report a
potential biological threat. It is quite another to
independently determine if that phone line gets answered at 2
o'clock in the morning, how long it takes for somebody to come
back with information, and whether the advice that is offered
makes sense. The first is a capacity; the second is a
capability.
Disaster drills are another issue. Expensive, prescripted
exercises, whether they are run by the hospital or in the
community, are substantially better than nothing, but they are
less useful for assessing capabilities than you can do with
inexpensive, no-notice drills, tabletop exercises, secret
shopper evaluations like the one I just described, and
systematic learning from real-world events, small as well as
large.
Now, the goal of these exercises is not to make hospitals
or communities or States look bad, but to help everybody
elevate their game so they will be ready when the big one
happens. Congress can help by encouraging Federal agencies to
promote team work at the local, the State, and the Federal
level and by focusing on practical measures that test and
improve the capability to respond.
Now, here is my bottom line. Boston responders deserve our
praise, but let us do more than pat them on the back. Let us
follow their example. Boston learned from the experiences of
London, Madrid, and Mumbai. The rest of us can learn from
Boston.
Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Thank you, Dr. Kellermann, and, Dr.
Coburn, thanks for inviting him.
I just want to start off, before I ask a question, and
speaking maybe for myself, maybe for my colleagues as well, the
idea, the thought that this terrible tragedy occurred, three
people were killed, declared dead on the scene. Everybody who
made it, roughly 300 people who made it to a hospital lived.
Some of those people had no pulse, and they were saved. They
are alive today. Some of the lives, many of the lives will be
changed forever. Hopefully they will continue to have the kind
of support to move on in their lives as they received that day,
support of a different kind. But the team of paid
professionals, volunteers, bystanders who pulled together as
one was just extraordinary.
When we gather in the Senate chamber later today to vote,
right over the head of the presiding officer in the Senate and
in the House are just about the only Latin words I know: E
pluribus unum. From many, one. And, boy, in Boston, from many,
one. Extraordinary, and thank you for reminding us of that.
I like to say that the road to improvement is always under
construction. Everything we do we know we can do better. I am
just going to start and ask each of you to give us an example
of one lesson from the tragedy in Boston that can be exported,
should be exported to other communities, to other cities in our
country. Just give us one really good example of what can be
exported. Mr. Serino.
Mr. Serino. I would say one is to ensure that the training
and the relationships are done ahead of time. I think that the
fact they are using these special events--planned disasters, if
you will--is absolutely key. Because every community, large or
small, across the country has events, whether it be on recently
the 4th of July--and I happened to be there with Kurt up in
Boston on the 4th as well. And building those relationships
during a special event, because you know you are going to have
numbers of people who are going to be concentrated; you are
going to have a lot of these different groups of people coming
together, and you have to be able to--for example, the 4th of
July and the marathon, people are going to get sick or injured,
but maybe not to the quantity, but building that and testing
that and making sure the people have the training and the
exercises and the equipment to do that.
So I think that taking the lessons learned from that as a
whole community approach, bringing all the different partners
together, as I mentioned, it was no accident that people went
to different hospitals. It was no accident that they were
treated on scene. It was no accident that they used
tourniquets, because that is the training and the exercise that
happens both at the special events using those and
incorporating them into what we do each and every day, and that
has been being done in Boston for years and should be done
across the country.
Chairman Carper. Thank you. Mr. Schwartz.
Mr. Schwartz. Well, I will build on that. So in addition to
the training and exercises and the worst-case scenario
planning, we have to translate--and we do in Boston, we did for
the marathon, we do for July 4th we have to translate that into
worst-case scenario response capabilities. It is one thing to
plan for a worst-case scenario, but on game day you need to be
ready to act very quickly.
So on marathon day, we had all of the operational capacity
across eight cities and towns to respond to these worst-case
scenarios. We had a multi-agency coordination center stood up,
80 participants, dozens of agencies; and as I said in my
prepared statement, across all eight cities and towns, we had
all sorts of resources that many people would say, ``Why are
they out there? This is a marathon. Why do you have Special
Tactical Operations (STOP) teams, SWAT teams, ordnance disposal
teams and K-9s, helicopters, CBRN monitoring? It is all very
expensive to deploy.'' Well, that is building that worst-case
scenario operational capacity and capability so that when the
bombs went off, there was not a delay. The reaction was
immediate. The response was immediate.
So I am just building on the worst-case scenario planning
to be able to implement that planning on a moment's notice.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Davis, please.
Mr. Davis. Senator, my colleagues here have mentioned
training and equipment and being prepared, and I think that
those are the two most important things. I am going to talk
just a bit about communication, but not radio communication. I
have already addressed that in my statement. I am talking about
communication with the community.
Chairman Carper. Let me just ask a question. When I was
Governor, we installed Statewide an 800-megahertz system to
deal with the interoperability so State police could talk to
fire could talk to all kinds of emergency responders. It took a
while to stand it up, finally got it straightened out. Do you
all use a similar system? What do you use?
Mr. Schwartz. There is an 800 system being used by the
State police; however, we are still in the 400 ultra high
frequency (UHF) area. We have cobbled together a system that
works very well, being able to patch all the different agencies
together. But because of the danger of losing these frequencies
in the near future, we really need to put a plan together to
continue that capability.
Chairman Carper. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Davis. But let me speak about social media and the old
adage that you cannot establish a relationship during a crisis.
We have a significant presence on social media where we have
engaged not only in a one-way communication but in a dialogue
with people in the community about all sorts of issues day in
and day out. We were able to use social media effectively in
the minutes after the blast to inform people as to where they
could go, as to what happened, where they could meet loved
ones. There was an enormous amount of upset in the community,
and we used social media to tamp that down. We also used it to
do outreach to the community to provide us clues and video and
photos of the bombers. And then we used it to correct things
that had been reported badly by the media.
So I guess my point is a substantial investment in the
utilization of social media to do direct outreach from public
safety organizations to the community can really help in any
kind of an event that happens like this. When the cell phones
go down, the texts do not, and so we were able to reach people
immediately through systems that are funded in the private
sector but utilized by the public sector very well.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thanks. Dr. Kellermann.
Dr. Kellermann. As the health guy at the table, I would say
it is critically important that public health and the medical
community be partners in planning as well as in response. In
disasters and terrorism, people often get hurt, and we have to
be on the same team to make that work.
The other point I think that Boston emphasized is you do
not prepare and put everything in a closet or in a garage and
lock it away. The best systems are the systems that work well
day to day, and you raise your game from what you are doing on
a day-to-day basis, and you are much more capable. The most
effective cities, the most effective systems in the country,
are those that are high performers every day of the week, every
day of the year, not just on the day of the disaster.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thank you.
We have been joined by a number of other colleagues:
Senator Chiesa, a new Senator from New Jersey, a former
Attorney General, has joined us. Tammy Baldwin, who comes to us
from the House of Representatives, before that she served with
distinction in the General Assembly of her State. Former
Attorney General--two Attorney Generals, like they are bookends
here, but Kelly Ayotte, it is great to have her here from New
Hampshire. And Dr. Johnson, a successful business person from
Wisconsin, has joined us.
Tom Coburn, who has had any number of careers, including
health care, a health care provider, a successful business
person, and a leader here, and I am going to yield to him now
for his questions.
Senator Coburn. Thank you.
Commissioner Davis, just one followup. The city of Boston
spent $4.7 million in 2008 and 2009 on interoperable
communications, yet you are still using 400 megahertz. What is
the plan, and why? Turn your mic on.
Mr. Davis. Excuse me, Senator. The money that was utilized
was put into rebuilding the infrastructure that is there. To
build on a new 800 frequency infrastructure would be much more
expensive than that, as I understand it. I am not an expert in
this field, but I do know that we have looked at it very
closely and the enormous amount of money that is necessary.
This is a system that covers 2,000 square miles, and it
services about 11,000 emergency personnel in that area.
Senator Coburn. So are there plans to go to the higher
frequency?
Mr. Davis. That might be better directed at Kurt as far as
what is happening across the State. I do not know the answer to
that, Senator.
Senator Coburn. Mr. Schwartz.
Mr. Schwartz. Well, our first approach over the years to
interoperability was to take all of our different systems--so
we have very high frequency (VHF), UHF, 700, 800--and assure
that we have regional plans and that all of our systems can
talk together. So interoperability is a huge success story.
Boston does not need to be on the 700 or 800 system to talk to
the State police. We spent the money to figure out how to make
them talk to each other and that works.
Now, as we look at the possibility of losing the T-band,
which will directly impact many communities, we are building a
core
700/800 system across the State, and we expect that over the
next 10 to 15 years many of our partners will move, will
migrate to the 700 and 800.
Senator Coburn. All right. Thank you.
Administrator Serino, of the capabilities utilized in the
response to the Boston bombings, which ones do you think are
most important in Boston and are least developed in other
cities? In other words, we have seen the stellar performance
here. There is no question about it. That is great, those
things that are important. What do you see least developed in
other major cities?
Mr. Serino. I may be a little biased about Boston. I will--
--
Senator Coburn. Well, I was biased for you, so let us talk
about what you see in the other cities.
Mr. Serino. And I think one of the things that is very
positive in Boston, as Commissioner Davis mentioned, I think is
the communication, and I am not talking the radios. I am
talking the fact that, people are on a first-name basis,
whether it is Federal, State, local, or the medical community.
The medical community has been linked in with public safety for
years, not just since 2001. It actually goes back before that.
And 2001 helped even reinforce that some more. And the ability
for the medical community, medical public health and public
safety community, to actually link together so people can
understand the language of both groups--you do not see that in
many places across the country. And I think it is absolutely
essential that the medical community, the public safety and
emergency management community are all on the same page. That
is probably one thing I think that is probably key, and in
Boston it saved lives.
Senator Coburn. So you do not think that we are as well
prepared in other major cities in terms of including the
medical community into these plans?
Mr. Serino. I think it is an opportunity that is done very
well in Boston and can be replicated in other places.
Senator Coburn. OK. In the past, FEMA has required that
States spend a certain percentage of grant dollars on specific
areas, like Improvised Explosive Device (IED) preparedness.
Should FEMA do more of this or better target that grant
spending?
Mr. Serino. With a lot of the grant funding that we have
developed over the last few years, it is specifically to let
the communities decide what is best to use rather than being
specifically on IEDs, but to give a general framework on how
people can actually utilize their grant funding in order to
meet, as mentioned earlier, a number of core capabilities. We
have 31 core capabilities and utilizing the State preparedness
report and the Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk
Assessment (THIRA), the threat and hazard assessment reports,
to utilize those to identify what the issues are, they go from
the locality to the State to the Federal Government. And then
look at those, they actually have the localities, the State and
locals decide what best to use that on that fit in to meet the
core capabilities and meet what they have identified as their
main priorities in the localities.
Senator Coburn. We have heard a lot about the importance of
exercises and training, especially drills, unannounced drills.
Dr. Kellermann has responded. What is the right mix of
spending? A lot of money has been spent on equipment and
preparedness. What is the right mix? Do we take Boston's
experience as an example and say here is how they did it?
On what we heard from Dr. Kellermann, I would love to have
all three of you comment. The fact that Boston looked at these
other events in major cities throughout the world had to have
played a key role in your preparedness for what happened in
Boston. Have the other large cities in this country done
similar planning?
Mr. Serino. As a matter of fact, yes. What Dr. Kellermann
is referring to is a program called ``Tale of Our Cities'' that
I actually brought to Boston a number of years ago, 2009, and
brought people in from Madrid, London, et cetera, and looked at
how we could actually do that. It was a 3-day event, and during
that period of time, first they had over 450 responders, the
second day just the leadership of, again, not just public
health and public safety but also Federal, State, local, and
actually changed policy literally that day in how we could look
at that.
What we have now done in the Federal level is there is a
program that we have had at FEMA for a while, the Joint
Counterterrorism Awareness Workshop (JCTAWS), which brings in
mainly law enforcement training that was, in fact, done in
Boston, and what we did is added a second day to that exactly
or very similar to the Tale of Our Cities, that now we have
taken around to a number of cities around the country over the
past couple of years, and now we are going to continue to
expand that and go to other cities with both the law
enforcement and the health component to show how that was done.
And, obviously, we are going to be adding to that from lessons
learned from Boston.
Senator Coburn. My time has expired.
Chairman Carper. Next to question is Senator Johnson, who
will be followed by Senator Ayotte, Senator Chiesa, and by
Senator Mark Begich, who chairs the relevant Subcommittee that
has oversight on FEMA and emergency management, former mayor of
Anchorage, so these are issues that he has thought a lot about
and brings a lot of expertise on. And then Senator Baldwin.
Senator Johnson, you are next. Thank you.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I
would like to start out by echoing some of your comments. It
always amazes me in these tragedies that we see the absolute
best in America. I will never forget the pictures of the
determined faces of the firemen and the police officers on
September 11, 2001 walking up those stairs. And we saw the
exact same thing in Boston. When those bombs went off, rather
than running away from danger, we saw the citizens of Boston
run toward the danger to help out.
First of all, I want to thank all of those who responded. I
want to thank you for your testimony. It is truly remarkable.
Mr. Schwartz, I truly appreciate your testimony and your
comments that this really is primarily a State and local
responsibility. So based on that, first of all, Commissioner
Davis, I am a numbers guy. What percent of your budget comes
from the Federal Government, from the State government, and
from the local government? Just do you have a general sense of
that?
Mr. Schwartz. Senator, our budget is primarily a local
budget. We have about a 10-percent increase in our budget that
comes from Federal and State grants. The State grants are
usually pass-throughs from Federal. So most of that money, most
of that 10 percent of my budget, is coming from the Federal
Government.
Senator Johnson. OK, so about 90 percent.
Mr. Schwartz, in terms of your agency and the State, how
much is from the State coffers versus the Federal Government?
Mr. Schwartz. The State Emergency Management Agency as an
agency is about 50 percent funded through Federal grant
dollars, and much of that is Emergency Management Performance
Grant dollars. The numbers across our other key State agencies,
if you looked at Fire Service and State police, are infinitely
smaller than that because they are receiving project-specific
grants.
Senator Johnson. So in terms of responding really to this
Boston city bombing, just kind of putting the numbers together,
90 percent is local, plus in the 10 percent, 50 percent of that
10 percent, 5 percent is State, and you got 50 percent of that
coming from the State. So about 92.5 percent is really State
and local government funding, which underscores your point, Dr.
Kellermann, that 7.5 percent is Federal Government spending,
92.5 percent is State and local.
So, with that in light, because being prepared is
incredibly important, I guess, Commissioner Davis, the question
I would have to ask you is: How many cities have contacted
Boston based on your extraordinary response to this to get some
tips, some pointers, get some training from what you have done
right?
Mr. Davis. There have been dozens of cities within the
United States and dozens of cities outside the United States
that have contacted us to share best practices with them.
Senator Johnson. We have seen an awful lot of abuse here in
the Federal Government level of conferences and association
meetings. But here is a real valid use of them, and is it being
used that way? Do you have national associations that are
getting together where, when you get similar commissioners or
you have public safety officials coming together for training,
for sharing stories, for sharing best practices? And how often
does that happen?
Mr. Davis. We do. About once a year there are groups of us
that travel to different countries. I am headed to the Middle
East this year. I was there last year. In 2005, I traveled to
London and worked with Sir Ian Blair just after the Tube
bombings. And he was able to lay out precisely what the
Metropolitan Police did in response to the terrorist attack in
the London Tube.
That information was extremely valuable to me when I
arrived on the scene. When I got there, it can be overwhelming
to see the kind of carnage that was wrought on the city of
Boston. But because I had been to London and spoken to people
who have put the case together, I knew precisely the process to
follow.
Senator Johnson. Were there other U.S. city police
commissioners that went with you to London?
Mr. Davis. There were. Through the----
Senator Johnson. How many?
Mr. Davis. There were six of us that traveled over there in
2005. There were three of us that traveled to the Middle East
last year. That is largely through the Police Executive
Research Forum, and they do use Federal money to allow some of
those trips. So it is working, but I think it should be
expanded, especially with this threat of terrorism that is
international.
Senator Johnson. But, again, from my standpoint, wouldn't
it be just as efficient to hold those conferences here in the
United States? And have similar type of conferences occurred?
Mr. Davis. However it works, absolutely.
Senator Johnson. But, I mean, have those conferences
occurred, or are they scheduled to occur?
Mr. Davis. They have occurred. We have brought people from
the country of Israel, we have brought people from India. There
have been people that have come to our national conferences to
give presentations, including the United Kingdom.
Senator Johnson. OK. Dr. Kellermann, real quick, what other
cities are performing at Boston's level?
Dr. Kellermann. I think the major terrorist cities are at
or close to that level--New York City, Los Angeles--but others,
I think, have to raise their game, have to take this seriously.
The fact that around this country today the most critical arena
of patient care in any hospital in a disaster, the emergency
room, is the most congested arena in the hospital is
unconscionable. Israel, which is a country I admire in their
no-nonsense, straightforward, practical approach preparedness,
that is the last place in the hospital they allow to get backed
up. We have to change that philosophy in this country.
Senator Johnson. OK. My time is running short, so I have to
get into the Mirandizing issue. Commissioner Davis, what were
your thoughts when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was Mirandized within--how
many hours? Sixteen hours? I cannot remember the exact
timeframe.
Mr. Davis. Right, we received an order from the United
States Attorney's Office not to Mirandize anyone in connection
with this incident because it was being prosecuted at the
Federal level. And I was surprised, but these statutes are
passed here, and they are implemented by the United States
Attorney, and we take direction from the people who are in
charge. At that point in time, the FBI had taken over the
investigation, and the U.S. Attorney's Office was running the
investigative part of it. And so I considered that an order
from the people who were statutorily responsible for this
investigation. But it was a surprise to me, Senator.
Senator Johnson. OK. I meant 60 hours, not 16 hours. There
is no hard and fast rule in terms of when that Mirandizing
occurs, correct?
Mr. Davis. Correct.
Senator Johnson. And we have actually gone--there have been
instances, precedents where that has gone on for 7 days.
Mr. Davis. I am not aware of that.
Senator Johnson. Or beyond. Do you think that would have
been the appropriate thing to do in this case, hold off
Mirandizing Dzhokhar, to actually get more information?
Mr. Davis. In this particular case, no, I think that
Miranda would have been fine. But we did have an evolving
threat for a period of time after those bombs were thrown, and
I can see that there can be unfolding situations where it might
not be appropriate. So, I mean, I do not want to comment on----
Senator Johnson. It is true that he stopped talking the
moment he was Mirandized, correct?
Mr. Davis. Yes.
Senator Johnson. We got no further information.
Mr. Davis. As far as I know.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. And just to dwell on that question for a
moment, Dr. Coburn and I have scheduled a followup hearing for
later this month to look at a timeline leading up to the
tragedy in Boston before and subsequent to that, and so we will
save that question for that day as well.
Senator Coburn. Let me just make a comment, just so
everybody understands.
Chairman Carper. Please.
Senator Coburn. Mirandizing--information collected before
somebody is Mirandized cannot be used, but you have not
violated the law if you have not Mirandized somebody. What you
have done is excluded any evidence that you might have gotten.
The balance is in collecting evidence that might eliminate
further events and taking that risk in terms of the conviction
of one bad actor versus preventing others. So it is a topic
that should be considered, and I appreciate that we are going
to do that.
Chairman Carper. Good. OK.
Senator Ayotte, please.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE
Senator Ayotte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I first of all
want to thank all of you for being here. Commissioner Davis, I
just want to thank you for the extraordinary bravery of the
Boston Police Department and all the law enforcement officers
and first responders that were involved. It was extraordinary,
your courage, the way you handled things, professional, and we
are all incredibly proud of the work that you have done, and,
really, you do set a shining example for how others should
handle--we hope that we do not have any more of these
incidents, but to be prepared for them.
I am also very proud, having been Attorney General in New
Hampshire, I know this is not the first time that the Boston
Police Department has done excellent work, and we have
cooperated on many cases across borders between Nashua, New
Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and it has been terrific. We were
also very proud to send Manchester and Nashua Sea Coast and the
New Hampshire State Police down, their SWAT and special
reaction teams, to be able to help and work with you on it. So
I just want to thank you for that. Our thoughts and prayers
continue to be obviously with the victims, and those who lost
limbs at the scene, incredibly brave. Think about a guy like
Jeff Bauman, the bravery that he showed and others at the
scene. We will continue to support them and thank you for what
you have done.
What I would like to get at is your testimony--having been
Attorney General (AG), I had a chance to interact with the
Joint Terrorism Task Force and wanted to get your thoughts on
what we needed to do to improve the MOU, to make sure that
agencies like Boston are getting the right information from the
Federal agencies and that you are treated as an equal partner
in that information sharing. So I saw your testimony on it and
wanted to get your insight about what you think should be done.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Senator. It has been a pleasure to
work with you over the years, and Colonel Quinn, who is an old
friend----
Senator Ayotte. Yes, he is a great guy. Thank you.
Mr. Davis. He really is, yes. But they did an incredible
job in helping us out after the incident.
After September 11, 2001, I had an opportunity to meet with
Director Mueller and talk about the help that local police
could provide to the FBI as a force multiplier in the war
against terrorism, and the Director was incredibly gracious and
opened up his offices to us. We have established these JTTFs,
and they have been working very well.
But as the Senator said, there is always room for
improvement, and I think that after this experience, when we go
back and look at the series of events that occurred, there are
a couple of things that come to mind. One is that the MOU could
be worked on from a more equal way so that there was an
exchange of information, it was not all one-sided; and I think
that is really important.
I also think that if there is information that comes in
about a terrorist threat to a particular city, the local
officials should have that information. There should be a
mandate somewhere that the Federal authorities have to share
that with us so that we can properly defend our community.
There can be a difference between decisions made for
prosecutorial reasons and decisions made for public safety. And
I think that that is the stress that occurs sometimes in these
investigations. And if we are aware of what the potential
threat is, we can make our own decision as to what we would do
with the information, which might be slightly different.
I am not saying anything was done wrong here, and I am not
saying that we would have done anything different had we had
the information that the FBI had prior to this. But I am saying
that there should be a full and equal partnership where
everyone is sharing equally.
Senator Ayotte. Well, Commissioner, I know your
responsibilities as the head of a large agency in Boston, a
large city, so the information that the FBI had in advance and
obviously we will have a separate hearing on, and I know that
you are talking with the Intelligence Committees about how we
can make sure that there is better coordination among the
Federal agencies. I think that is critical that we get at that
to make sure that things like the terror watchlist are
effective and the information--did you have any of that in
advance?
Mr. Davis. We have four officers who were assigned to the
JTTF. There is one in each terrorism squad. But we were not
aware of the information on Tsarnaev and his travel overseas.
Senator Ayotte. To Russia.
Mr. Davis. Correct.
Senator Ayotte. So what we need to do is make sure--you hit
it right on. I mean, the bottom line is that a local police
officer is most likely to encounter that individual first as
opposed to an FBI agent, because you are on the ground, you are
on the streets every day, and if you do not have that
information and you encounter someone like Tsarnaev in advance,
then you do not have the information in your mind as to how to
treat that individual and what to do with whatever actions they
are making.
And so if that information is not flowing down fully to
State and local in the way it needs to, then we do need to
address that and make sure we get to the bottom of it, because,
I know the FBI, they work very hard, they do a good job, but
they are not on the streets every day. You are. And you are
likely to encounter that person first. Is that right?
Mr. Davis. That is correct, Senator. I just want to stress
we have a tremendous working relationship with them. We are
full partners in many of the endeavors that we have. But if
information is compartmentalized and kept away from our Boston
Regional Intelligence Center, then when my officers stop
Tsarnaev or someone like him, we are not hitting on that data
base right away.
Senator Ayotte. Right.
Mr. Davis. So we are blind as to the prior information, and
that puts my officers at risk. So I feel very strongly about
this.
Senator Ayotte. So this is something that we can help
address here by making sure that the information sharing is
improved and that this MOU, that there is a clear understanding
that the information cannot just flow one way. And, I have
great respect for the FBI, too, and as I understand it, the
cooperation was good here. What was your sense of the State,
local, Federal cooperation at this investigation?
Mr. Davis. It could not have been better. My first call was
to Rick Deslauriers, the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the
FBI. I then called Tim Alben, the colonel of the State police,
and I said, ``We need Explosive Ordanance Disposal (EOD) units
and we need SWAT teams, and we need them right away.'' And
there was no hesitation or delay. They sent them immediately,
and we worked seamlessly from that moment on. So there was no
problem during the investigation. It was better than I ever
could have anticipated.
Senator Ayotte. That is great. And I had the privilege of
working some great investigations with the FBI and State and
local, too, and I want you to know we will make sure we get to
the bottom of this issue because, again, we cannot have local
police officers on the streets encountering people like
Tsarnaev and not have the background, because it is an officer
safety issue as well as an intelligence-gathering issue. So
thank you very much for being here today, all of you. I very
much appreciate your testimony and also, again, thank you for
your exceptional reaction and response to this terrible
situation.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Carper. Thank you for those comments and for those
questions.
Our next Senator is also a former Attorney General for his
State, a new Senator, and we are happy that he is here with us,
and especially on this Committee. Senator Chiesa.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHIESA
Senator Chiesa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all
of you for being here. I was serving as Attorney General the
day of the bombings, Commissioner, in particular. I know that
Colonel Fuentes had said to me, having had a relationship with
you, that he thought--he knew that the response was going to be
outstanding, and that is what all of us saw--heroism,
professionalism.
And the other thing I was struck by was the cohesion that
all of the different law enforcement agencies brought to a
really chaotic situation. No elbowing, no sort of ``I am here,
this is my turf, this is your turf.'' The sense was and the
perception was, certainly from my standpoint, an incredibly
integrated group that was focused on one thing. That was
keeping people safe, getting them treatment, and then making
sure that we got the people that did this as quickly as
possible. So congratulations to all of you for the roles that
you played, in particular the folks in Boston and the FBI and
everybody else that was involved.
I think Senator Ayotte makes an excellent point, and one of
the things that I always had a lot of consternation about was
the compartmentalization of information. And I think we have
taken great steps--I know we have worked really hard on it in
New Jersey. And what I want to ask you, Commissioner, is--you
said there are four Boston police department (PD) members on
the JTTF? How many State police members on the JTTF?
Mr. Schwartz. There are seven full-time----
Senator Chiesa. Seven full-time? And how did you make those
determinations for the numbers that you would have sitting
full-time on the JTTF?
Mr. Davis. The decisions have been made over the years
based upon our staffing and where we could get bodies to put
into that unit. And as the issue ebbs and flows, we have
maintained the same number of people. But after conversations I
have had with Ray Kelly in New York City and some of my other
colleagues, I think that it is time to increase the number of
officers that are there so that we can have a wider presence at
the JTTF. That might help the communications issue.
Senator Chiesa. I want to talk to you a little about the
fusion centers. I know immediately following there was--what I
noticed during this time was that information was flowing to
different States. So there were some contacts in New Jersey
that had to be run down. There were contacts in other States,
certainly New York, that had to be run down. And I got
debriefed afterwards and went to our fusion center, and I was
really impressed with the way we were able to coordinate that
information.
What is your impression of the effectiveness of the fusion
centers being used specifically for this incident, and then
steps that you may be taking to improve the way you are able to
utilize those resources going forward?
Mr. Davis. Well, I think that it is really important to
engage the fusion centers in a more active way with the JTTFs.
There are different models of that across the Nation. But there
could be an improvement in the coordination of information
among the agencies, especially DHS and some of the analytical
ability that they bring to the process, and making sure that
information is better shared. That is sort of the area that the
Chiefs Association, the Major City Chiefs would like to enter
into by looking at the MOU, so that that MOU can be crafted so
that there is a real--it has got teeth in it to push the
information both ways.
Senator Chiesa. Right. And when other cities or other
communities call you and other nations call you about your
response, what advice do you give them to place where fusion
centers have been stood up? And there is certainly always a
debate as to--there is intelligence that comes from street
crime that is used for the fusion centers, which is very
effective to combat gun violence and combat gang violence. They
were set up, though, primarily and in large measure post 9/11
to make sure that we were coordinating the information on
potential terrorism activity.
So what advice do you have for other cities in terms of
creating the correct balance in allocating the resources for
the fusion centers to deal with those two competing interests?
Mr. Davis. I really think it is important to brief cases
out jointly so that there is an intelligence flow back and
forth. And the information that comes in from the street can be
extremely helpful to ongoing JTTF investigations.
So my officers can access all of our systems, but there is
limited access to Federal systems, and that is where the rub
is. Names can fall through the cracks here the way it is set
up.
Senator Chiesa. And what are the ways that you think this
Committee can help with getting rid of some of those things
falling through the cracks? Specifically I am talking about the
fusion centers, which I know have a lot of THIRA money behind
them. What can we talk about or what are the steps that we
should be thinking about to help in that regard?
Mr. Davis. I just believe that generally a rule that says
if there is threat information on terrorism in a particular
jurisdiction, the jurisdiction has to be brought into the
conversation about it. Even if the case is closed out, we
should know what the allegation was. And at this point in time,
that is not happening.
Senator Chiesa. I think a lot of this has to do with
developing relationships, and I think somebody remarked before
that you should not be handing out business cards at the scene
of one of these incidents. I think that is an excellent point,
and so over your years in developing these relationships, I
think that is a critical issue, and I think you could see the
effectiveness that it had with all of you working together that
day. And I know that this tension exists in other
jurisdictions, and we deal with it in other places, and it is
not designed in any way to undermine our ability to do these
investigations. I think there are people that think they are
better situated than others, better trained, or whatever you
want to call it.
So what I hope this Committee will think about and I hope
that all of you will continue to give us information about is
the ways that we can continue to help those relationships
become solidified in ways that there are trust--and I am not
just talking about the ones where regionally, in Boston and New
Hampshire, where people have worked together over time, but I
think Senator Coburn talked before about these conferences, and
some conferences are better than other conferences. Well, the
conferences that we get all of you in a room together to talk
about terrorism activities and sharing information seems to me
to be a really good way to spend our money and have you spend
your time.
Would you agree with that?
Mr. Davis. I agree completely.
Senator Chiesa. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. Thank you.
Dr. Coburn and Senator Carl Levin have spent a fair amount
of time in the last Congress looking at fusion centers, finding
out which ones work, which ones do not, and to see what we can
learn to make sure that more of them work effectively. So
thanks for that line of questioning.
Senator Begich, again, former mayor of Anchorage, and
someone who chairs the relevant Subcommittee that focuses
directly on emergency preparedness and FEMA, is now recognized.
Thank you.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BEGICH
Senator Begich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very
much. I actually want to followup real quick on the fusion
center, and maybe, Mr. Davis, you can answer this, or whoever
would like to answer this. But in this situation, how would you
grade the fusion center activity in response or participation?
Mr. Davis. In response, the fusion center worked very well.
We have a means to communicate through secure rooms. We have a
Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) in the
communications center, in our BRIC, Boston Regional
Intelligence Center, our fusion center. And that fusion center
was able to talk directly to the FBI command post, and they
were processing information. We had had some contact with some
of the peripheral individuals in this, and we fed that
information immediately to the investigators.
So in the aftermath, everybody pulled together. And
subsequent to that, in preparation for July 4th, there were
some really excellent conversations that occurred that had not
happened previously about each threat that was out there. So I
think we have come a long way, but I would like to see that
memorialized in writing so that it----
Senator Begich. Like a memorandum of agreement or some sort
of understanding.
Mr. Davis. Correct. Yes, sir.
Senator Begich. Let me ask you, and then I want to go to
another line of questioning, if I can, but you had mentioned
limited access of Federal systems or information flow. Do you
know, is that by regulation or is it by law that the two-way
street of information flow is not as good as you would like it?
And if you do not know that, I do not mean to----
Mr. Davis. It is by regulation, so that within the MOU
there are specific pieces in there that prohibit a two-way flow
of information.
Senator Begich. OK.
Mr. Davis. A task force officer cannot just report
information back to his superiors at the local department.
Senator Begich. So this is something that through Homeland
Security or FEMA or whatever the right organization is,
depending on who you are dealing with, FBI or whatever those
MOUs are with, it is something that they could, change by,
sitting down and looking at. Kind of an after-incident report
of what happened in Boston as an example of where a better flow
of information maybe previous to that incident might have had
some positive impact in preventing the event. Is that a fair
statement?
Mr. Davis. It is, but it is a twofold issue. It is not
simply the MOU. It is also the cultural issue.
Senator Begich. Understood. But, I mean, nothing
legislatively prohibits them----
Mr. Davis. No, nothing.
Senator Begich. OK. That was my second part, and you hit
it, and that is kind of the internal cultural environment of
some of our Federal agencies. We hold information we get from
you. And I know as a former mayor, our police department had an
ongoing effort, especially with gang activity, to try to make
sure information flowed because we were on the streets every
minute every day dealing with these incident, and what we ended
up doing, and especially around the gang issue, we actually
hired city prosecutors, put them in the U.S. Attorney's Office
so we could have a better relationship. And it actually worked
very successfully, but we had to create a new environment. We
did not have to do it legislatively. We could do it by
regulation, and that is kind of what you see, but also the
culture. Is that something that is so deep and ingrained, do
you think, in the agencies that will take time to happen, or
can it happen fairly rapidly because the new understanding of
these incidences are that they--could be homegrown, like this
example?
Mr. Davis. I think it can happen rapidly, Senator. This is
a problem that is not simply in Federal agencies. This is
endemic to policing. I have had units within my own department
that would not talk to each other.
Senator Begich. Right.
Mr. Davis. So this is a constant cultural thing that my
colleagues are working against in local police agencies. But we
have made great progress on it. So if you train it up and
supervise it, you can make a difference. I know we did a lot of
training on the front end, new recruits coming in and trying to
make sure that when they came in, they understood kind of the
new culture. I mean, it used to be in police work, even though
a police officer would tell you they are not in the social
service work, lots of times there is a connection between the
two, when they do work in schools, for example, which 20 years
ago was really not the situation. They would just show up to
schools, and extract someone. Now it is a different approach.
That took a change in how we trained them at the front end so
when they hit the streets they were ready and prepared.
Senator Begich. Is that kind of one of the big pieces that
we need to be thinking about?
Mr. Davis. Absolutely. It is organizational change,
something I have become very good at over two police
departments. But believe me, it is a problem in every
organization. We have to be vigilant and sustain the change.
Senator Begich. Let me ask you one more question, and I
want to change my topic in this question. That is, I know for a
lot of the equipment and activity you were able to utilize--or
some of the equipment, armored cars, command posts, robots, so
forth, there is Federal money related sometimes with grant
dollars that are coming in. Because the way we are dealing with
our Federal budget, which is not so great, to be frank with
you, that those dollars are going this way, is there going to
be local ability to pick that slack up or is there going to be
a gap?
Mr. Davis. There is going to be a gap, Senator. No
question.
Senator Begich. OK. And I will not go into my diatribe on
how we do our budgets around here. I will leave that. But your
statement is that there will be a gap, no question about it.
Mr. Davis. There is no doubt.
Senator Begich. Let me ask to the Federal agency folks who
maybe--and if I pronounce this wrong, I apologize. Is it
``Serrana? ''
Mr. Serino. ``Serino.''
Senator Begich. ``Serino.'' Let me ask you this question,
if I can. I know one of the issues we have had, as on grants is
the accountability of grants. Let us take, for example, the
incident in Boston. Are you going to do anything that reviews
how those Federal dollars that went to purchase equipment, how
those were utilized and improvements on that or positives that
could be shared with us? Is that something that you are doing
or will do in the future?
Mr. Serino. We have actually done a lot of that already----
Senator Begich. Fantastic.
Mr. Serino [continuing]. Working closely with the State and
the city, is looked at specifically what equipment and also
training and exercise.
Senator Begich. Right.
Mr. Serino. You asked about equipment. That was actually
utilized during the marathon and the week following, and a fair
amount of the equipment was used in that. And I think one thing
that we have also strived to do is to look at it as not just a
city capability but a regional capability. And, again, Boston
and Massachusetts and outside the State have done that very
well. There were a number of other police departments and
agencies that brought some of their Homeland Security-funded
equipment to the scene to help out with that as well.
Senator Begich. And if I can ask--and I will do some
followup with you from the Subcommittee standpoint because I
think we would be very interested in that because, as you know,
we had a hearing a few weeks ago on grants, as you will recall.
The last question I will just put out there to whoever
wants to respond, and I know we have seen it in Boston, I have
seen it in Galena, Alaska, recently where citizens, stepped up
to the plate very rapidly. Is there something more--and anyone
can answer this--we can do to train up or prepare? I know in
Anchorage when I was mayor, our goal was that every single city
employee would be Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) trained,
for example, because we thought 3,000 people on the street
every day is a powerful tool in case of a situation, single
incident or multiple incident.
Do you think there is something more that can be done that
we could do or that we could encourage to be done?
Mr. Serino. I think there is a lot that can be done, and I
think an example of that, again, was in Boston, that the
civilians helped out, utilized tourniquets, utilized simple
things as direct pressure to control a lot of the bleeding and,
in fact, saved lives. And, in fact, in the grant guidance that
we gave out for this year, for both the State Homeland Security
Grants and the UASI grants, we actually put language in there
as a priority that they could use the money additionally to
train people for mass casualties and to look at that. And we
have been working with the International Association of Chiefs
of Police (IACP), fire chiefs, EMS, et cetera, to look at how
we can actually utilize civilians to help train people and get
people to do some basic simple things that, in fact, do save
lives.
Senator Begich. Very good.
Dr. Kellermann. Around the world and in communities,
bystanders and neighbors are the real first responders. That is
a huge asset that our country can take advantage of.
Senator Begich. Very good. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Carper. You bet. There is a lot left on the table
here, I would say, Senator Begich, in terms of issues to
explore. As I said earlier, Dr. Coburn and I are going to hold
a hearing in a couple of weeks that focuses on the timeline
leading up to the Boston tragedy and the aftermath and the
investigations and so forth. But there is a huge amount of
lessons learned here. In the National Governors Association
(NGA), we had something called ``Center for Best Practices,'' a
clearinghouse for good ideas and find out what was working in
Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, or Alaska and see if we
could export it and bring it back. But there are a lot of good
lessons learned here, and we are just scratching the surface, I
think. But I know you and Senator Paul have plenty of
opportunity to explore. Good. Thanks.
All right. Senator Baldwin, thank you for joining us very
much.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN
Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, gentlemen,
thank you all for being here today and for your testimony, and
particularly for your public service. The men and women who you
lead have the gratitude of all Wisconsinites, but in particular
those who were present in Boston to participate in the marathon
or to cheer on their friends and loved ones.
I would like to direct my questions to Deputy Administrator
Serino. It is obvious that Federal support has played a
critical role in helping State and local government, as we can
see from the Boston experience, prepare for these catastrophic
events. And, one of the key lessons learned here has been the
importance of building relationships between the various levels
of government and conducting joint exercises on a wide range of
scenarios.
I want to just focus on my home State of Wisconsin. We have
benefited over many years from significant grant funding to
help our State and local governments effectively respond should
a tragedy strike. However, a lot of the assistance ended in
2010 when the city of Milwaukee was removed from the Urban Area
Security Initiative.
Now, a recent audit released this year from the Department
of Homeland Security's Inspector General gave pretty strong
reviews to how Wisconsin had utilized the earlier funds
received in the State, but that said, I think that we will be
much better prepared to protect the people with sufficient
Federal support.
In Wisconsin, we have two fusion centers--one in Milwaukee,
the other in Madison--and these centers do, I think, a really
great job on a day-to-day basis coordinating among local,
State, and Federal authorities. But without adequate emergency
management performance grants, they will have difficulties
ramping up in the event of a very significant challenge or
tragedy. Moreover, without such grants, cooperative exercises
to prepare for such incidents really are not possible.
So I would like to hear your thoughts, recognizing the very
constrained funding environment in which we live right now,
please speak to how FEMA can help cities and regions like
southeast Wisconsin, which have been removed from the Tier 2
list of critical cities.
Mr. Serino. Thank you, Senator. Actually, I had the
opportunity to go out to Milwaukee a couple of times and
actually visit the fusion center in Milwaukee and saw Chief
Flynn, who I knew from when he was in the Boston area as well.
And in Milwaukee, they actually have a pretty comprehensive
integrated fusion center that works with a lot of the different
agencies.
As we look to continue to move forward, the emergency
management performance grants are still in place and have the
ability to utilize those, how the State and localities deem
fit, some for their personnel and also if they need it for
exercises as well.
I think as we move on and continue, a lot of this can be
done at the local level. A lot of these, as Dr. Kellermann
mentioned earlier, some exercises can also be done fairly
inexpensively. It is a lot of times getting people together,
holding, if you will, some tabletop exercises and realizing
that it is a priority.
Some of the grant funds that we use for the UASI grant in
Milwaukee, we were able to buy some of the equipment that they
needed, but also to build in the capabilities and to go forward
even though they are still not receiving the funds, they still
have a lot of the capabilities that were built up during that
period of time.
Senator Baldwin. I know that Wisconsin and our Division of
Emergency Management are thinking ahead and thinking about how
to do things on a tighter budget. And one of the things that
they are hoping to focus on is the ability to respond to cyber
threats. I know this is part of the jurisdiction of this
Committee, and we are working earnestly on that.
But last year, the Wisconsin National Guard worked with the
University of Wisconsin to launch a volunteer cybersecurity
initiative to deal with these challenges, but in part because
of the very voluntary nature of it, it ended up falling
through. And so, perhaps you can speak specifically to
cybersecurity as we move forward. How can FEMA help a State
like Wisconsin or other States prepare for the increasing
concerns of either cyber threats, cyber terrorism, or a cyber
component of a larger threat?
Mr. Serino. I think a lot of it is with the cyber threat is
something that is real and something that we are dealing with,
and I think within FEMA and more broadly within the Department
of Homeland Security, actually has a number of programs that
are actually dealing with cybersecurity, both with the National
Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), the National
preparedness division within the Department of Homeland
Security, and a cyber office there is reaching out through the
State fusion centers in order to educate people and look at
some opportunities both for education and things that they can
do, and we are sharing that on a regular basis at a Department
level, not necessarily through a FEMA level.
Senator Baldwin. OK. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. I have been struck by any number of things
that our panel has said today. One of the things that I want to
return to deals with communications, and we had some discussion
of 400-megahertz systems, 800-megahertz systems, and
interoperability of those different systems.
But what I wanted to come back to, as you, Mr. Davis, have
talked about, is the communications that goes beyond radio
systems. You all seem to do a pretty good job of facilitating
communications between different units, different levels of
government, the emergency medical providers, the hospitals, the
law enforcement folks. Pretty extraordinary.
We are a little State. We have not quite a million people,
and we like to say in Delaware that on a good day you can get
just about anybody you need to in a room and solve most of the
problems that we face as a State. That is a bit of an
exaggeration, but we know each other and we work pretty well
across party lines. You all seem to somehow have figured that
out, at least in this instance as well. Talk to us about how in
a big metropolitan area a lot of players, a lot of egos, that
you are somehow able to have mastered this, been able to
communicate. I like to ask people who have been married a long
time, I like to ask them what is the secret for being married a
long time, and people married 40, 50, 60 years, and I get some
hilarious answers. Last month, I talked to a couple that had
been married 54 years, and I said, ``Ma'am, what is the
secret''--she was standing next to her husband. I said, ``What
is the secret for being married 54 years?'' And she looked at
him, and she said, ``He will tell you that he can be right or
he can be happy, but he cannot be both.'' [Laughter.]
The best answer I have ever heard to the question, though,
what is the secret of being married for a long time, is the two
C's: communicate and compromise. Communicate and compromise.
That is actually the key to a vibrant democracy.
But you all are doing a pretty job on communications. Let
us just talk a little bit more about that. Tell us what you
think.
Mr. Davis. Well, thank you, Senator. I think that the
communication among the law enforcement agencies is fairly
simple to describe. It occurs because we work together on a lot
of different challenges day in and day out, so we are
constantly either in each other's offices or talking about an
investigation that is going on, a crisis, as Kurt described,
that we have to deal with, the water crisis, for instance, when
the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) link to the
reservoirs broke. That required us to get all hands on deck and
to do logistical planning and delivery of water to places on
the fly, very quickly. It had not been prepared for. But it
informed the collaborative process that was continued.
And I think that if you continually make planning or
processes involve everyone and everybody is at the table, there
is a personal knowledge that develops, even in a large
metropolitan area like Boston.
And then the ego issue is very important. Everybody has an
ego at the table, but when we come together, we are guided by
the law and by the rule of law, and the people who are at those
tables put their egos in their back pockets and do what the law
dictates but also concentrate on that collaborative kind of
working together attitude to get the job done.
Rick Deslauriers said, ``One team, one mission,'' through
the whole process, and I think that that is a good indication
of how it was dealt with.
Chairman Carper. One of my favorite saying is, ``There is
no `I' in the word `team.' '' And you certainly indicated that.
Dr. Coburn, did you want to say something? I have a couple
more questions.
Senator Coburn. OK.
Chairman Carper. I promise not to go on today like I did
yesterday.
I want us to go back and talk a little bit about the
medical response, and I think I said earlier on, tragically,
sadly, three people died. And for them and for their families,
we mourn even today their loss. But other people who were
injured did not die and are alive today. In some cases, lives
changed dramatically, but they are alive today. And we hope
they are surrounded with the kind of support that they need.
Talk to us about the involvement, if you will, of the
medical community, the hospitals and the emergency medical
first responders. Talk to us about how they were involved and
were able to be part of the team and such an effective part of
the team. How did that happen?
Mr. Davis. I'm just going to speak briefly. I think Rick
Serino, because of his experience in Boston, has a very good
working knowledge.
Chairman Carper. Please.
Mr. Davis. Just briefly, it was not just the medical people
who were on duty. It was the medical people who were at the
tents to take care of people who were dehydrated and----
Chairman Carper. Do I understand that the number of docs,
for example, that were there that day was sort of doubled from
maybe in previous years? I have heard from 60 to 120 because of
the dehydration challenges earlier.
Mr. Davis. I do not know the answer to that, but Rick
says----
Chairman Carper. Yes, I think that----
Mr. Davis. I guess the point I wanted to make real briefly
was those doctors sprung into action. Doctors who were running
by that were in the marathon came over to assist. It happened
in Boston where the medical care is just extraordinary, and I
cannot say enough about the medical personnel. They cleared a
hundred operating rooms within 15 minutes and opened them up to
trauma. So it was an incredible example of work that was done
in the field and also in the hospitals.
Chairman Carper. Mr. Serino.
Mr. Serino. A number of things that happened, I think the
Commissioner mentioned it, is that there was a medical tent
that could treat up to 250 people just about a block away, half
a block away from the finish line that was set up to take care
of people. With that, there are a number of medical volunteers
including physicians, nurses, physical therapists, and people
just to help out. And supporting that is a combination of the
city's emergency medical services, also with some private
services to help with transport. There were EMTs, paramedics on
bicycles, on all-terrain vehicles in order to help move them as
well. Plus it was linked ahead of time with the hospitals. The
hospitals all played a key role in this, and it happened to
happen at shift change as well at the hospitals which played
another key role in that. And it was also a holiday in Boston,
in Massachusetts, which meant the operating rooms were a little
less. There were a number of things that played into it.
But there was also the fact that there was a lot of
practice that went into this. There were a number of examples.
In fact, in talking to a number of people at various hospitals,
we had done a drill a few years ago that simulated two
airliners crashed, 500 people were hurt and taken to various
hospitals. In talking to some of the emergency physicians, they
actually remembered that when they got to the ER, this is what
we did during the drill: we did this, this, and this. I talked
to EMTs and paramedics who were on the ground who said that as
soon as this happened, they remembered this is what they have
to do. They have to go look at the--they have to do--and their
training kicked right in. They realized the potential for
secondary devices, EMTs, who notified law enforcement.
So it was not just--as I said earlier, it was not an
accident. This was something that was done and drilled and
trained many times.
Chairman Carper. Thank you. Thank you both for those
responses. Dr. Coburn.
Senator Coburn. I think that reinforces Dr. Kellermann's
testimony in terms of drills being important. It is not just
training and equipment.
Commissioner, I wanted to ask you, what equipment did you
not have that you needed?
Mr. Davis. We had excellent equipment. There was nothing
that we needed that we did not have.
Senator Coburn. And 10 percent of your budget comes from
the Federal Government--or 7.5 percent, as Senator Johnson
said. So, one of the problems with some of our grants and the
lack of oversight is there is a point in time when we are
equipped up, and so then it should become maintenance of what
we have rather than purchasing new equipment. And so even
though we are in a tight budget system, we have spent a lot of
money, Federal dollars in terms of grants, bringing the
equipment forward, and I think we have shown that that has been
very beneficial in terms of the Boston Marathon bombing.
Secretary Schwartz, I want to ask you a couple of things.
What are the major differences between the Commonwealth Fusion
Center and the Boston Regional Intelligence Center?
Mr. Schwartz. Well----
Senator Coburn. And why do you have both?
Mr. Schwartz. Well, I can speak to the Commonwealth Fusion
Center. I think the Commissioner can speak to the BRIC. But the
Commonwealth Fusion Center serves the whole State and is an
all-crimes fusion center. As Commissioner Davis alluded to
earlier, there are lots of different models out there for
fusion centers. We have all-hazards fusion centers, terrorism
fusion centers, all-crimes. We happen to be primarily an all-
crimes fusion center that has invested a considerable amount of
money over the years in building the capacity to tie into
locally gathered information and intelligence and to be able to
analyze that and connect dots between, on the terrorism side,
terrorism threats and terrorism information that may be coming
from the top down and connecting the dots with information that
is gathered at the local level. And that is not just suspicious
activity reports, which are sort of the easy thing, but it is
all of the daily police work that is done every day, all of the
incident reports across all 351 cities and towns, the thousands
and thousands of incident reports that are generated every day,
building a capacity to analyze the information in those.
So we are serving a statewide function. We have a
significant presence in the JTTF, I believe seven full-time
now. That number is down from what it was a number of years ago
for budget reasons, although Colonel Alben and Secretary Cabral
have recently been talking about a way to increase those
numbers. Our full-time JTTF troopers are part of our fusion
center, are commanded by the commanding officer of the fusion
center. We have DHS and FBI intel analysts in our fusion
center.
I think the Commissioner can speak to the BRIC, but I think
they fulfill very different functions, although compatible, and
work very closely together and with the JTTF.
Senator Coburn. And what are those different functions?
Mr. Davis. I think, Senator, it is a matter of volume.
Major Quinn, who runs the State fusion center, and
Superintendent Paul Fitzgerald are in daily contact working on
issues that go back and forth. As Kurt said, there are 350
cities and towns in Massachusetts, but there are about a dozen
that are contiguous to Boston that have well over a million
residents and drive the crime numbers in the State. So there is
a lot of criminal activity occurring there, and so the Boston
Regional Intelligence Center, is focused on what is happening
in those contiguous communities, and the coordination of
intelligence and deconfliction of investigations, there is an
enormous amount of work being done by those individuals in the
BRIC. We have now incorporated a real-time crime center into
that, the type that New York has been using so that we can
inform officers going to the scene of intelligence that is
occurring.
So it really is a dynamic all-hazard location, but it
really is a matter of volume.
Senator Coburn. Did the Commonwealth Fusion Center provide
information or actionable intelligence to anyone after the
bombings that was not provided through any other channels? And
if so, what was it?
Mr. Davis. I do not believe they did.
Senator Coburn. All right. We have heard a lot about the
value of training and exercises like Urban Shield. When we
looked at your data, we saw that about 83 percent of the grant
spending from 2008 to 2010 was categorized under ``Equipment
and Planning,'' not ``Training and Exercises.'' Is that data
accurate, Mr. Schwartz?
Mr. Schwartz. The data you have, the raw data you have is
accurate. I do not have the percentages in front of me.
Senator Coburn. OK. $1.3 million of the 2008 grant funds
were spent on an IED planning contract with a company called
Global Incorporated. Do you know what the outcome of that was?
Mr. Schwartz. I do not.
Senator Coburn. All right. Can you answer that for the
record?
Mr. Schwartz. I can. I will go back and look. I do not know
whether that is on the UASI side or from our four regions that
are outside the UASI. But we can look at that, yes.
Senator Coburn. And according to your data, relatively few
dollars from 2010, 2011, or 2012 grant years have yet been
spent. Is that correct?
Mr. Schwartz. It is not correct. There are some very large
reimbursements that are--millions of dollars that are not
captured in what you have because those are just being paid
now.
Senator Coburn. Will you send that to us, please?
Mr. Schwartz. Absolutely.
Senator Coburn. Thank you.
Was there anything from the Commonwealth Fusion Center--did
you have access to any information on the Tsarnaevs?
Mr. Schwartz. Are you talking prior to their
identification?
Senator Coburn. Yes.
Mr. Schwartz. The answer in the Commonwealth Fusion Center
again is the same as you heard from Commissioner Davis.
Although we have full-time troopers assigned to the JTTF, none
of our troopers participated in the interviews or the
preliminary inquiry that was conducted a number of years ago.
So we were not aware through any participation, and none of our
troopers had any reason to ever query their names prior to
April 19. So prior to April 19, nobody in the State police had
any knowledge of the Tsarnaev brothers.
Senator Coburn. All right. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Next, Senator Johnson, Senator Ayotte,
then Senator Chiesa. A vote has been scheduled for noon, and we
will wrap up shortly after that. But, Senator Johnson, you are
recognized.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to talk a little bit about the camera
surveillance system. Obviously, with the disclosures on the
National Security Agency (NSA) data collection, there has been
a pretty large public debate now about the balance between
privacy, civil liberties, and security.
What was the State of the camera surveillance system on the
streets of Boston that day?
Mr. Davis. We have two sets of cameras, Senator. We have
cameras that are set up for traffic control, and they are in
the downtown area. So there were several cameras that were
around the neighborhood, but not directly on the route. So we
were not using cameras that were on the marathon route for law
enforcement purposes at that time.
Our homeland security cameras are on the major
thoroughfares that allow exit from the city, and those were
mostly in the neighborhoods. There is a significant amount of
violence that occurs in the neighborhoods, and that is where we
had focused our cameras prior to this.
Senator Johnson. So who paid for those systems? You said
homeland security cameras. Is that paid by the Federal
Government?
Mr. Davis. That is correct.
Senator Johnson. And then the traffic control or----
Mr. Davis. The traffic cam was probably from transportation
grants, but the city has purchased them as well.
Senator Johnson. Do those cameras have a dual purpose? In a
case like this, can you refer to those? Are those clear enough?
Mr. Davis. They have a problem with clarity, and they also
were not recorded until just a few days after the marathon. So
we have just got transportation to start to record those
cameras so we can go back and look at them.
Senator Johnson. I am concerned about civil liberties as
well as anybody, but I was certainly hoping there were cameras
on the streets that would identify these individuals. Did you
have a similar type of reaction? Did you wish you had had more
cameras on the streets at that point in time?
Mr. Davis. In hindsight, cameras along that route and some
other key locations I think are a very important addition to
our security plan. But what was good about this was the
community pushed cameras forward, and businesses all are using
video at their businesses. So we were able to access those
businesses very quickly, and critical information came from the
community through cameras.
Senator Johnson. That is primarily how we ID'd these
individuals, correct, was private cameras, private businesses,
and just private citizens?
Mr. Davis. People on the street taking photos, yes, sir.
Senator Johnson. OK. Mr. Serino, I would like to talk--and
maybe these questions will be better suited for our next
hearing, but I would still like to talk a little bit about
Homeland Security's role in the older Tsarnaev brother's exit
of the United States and then coming back in and the system
that is set up to track that, to be pinged. It is true that
DHS--your system was pinged that he left the country, correct?
Mr. Serino. That is a different part within DHS and
something that we would be happy to get back to you with the
appropriate people in the Department. I am more in the FEMA
area.
Senator Johnson. OK. Then I will just save those questions
for later, and, Mr. Chairman, I will end my questioning at this
point in time. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Fair enough. Good. You will have ample
opportunity, and we will welcome that line of questioning at
our next hearing.
Senator Johnson. Thanks.
Chairman Carper. General Ayotte.
Senator Ayotte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just wanted to followup on the question that Dr. Coburn
asked because I think it gets back to the issue, Commissioner,
that we were talking about before, where, Secretary Schwartz,
whether it is the BRIC or the fusion center, if the Feds and
FBI, if we are not sharing, or Homeland are not sharing the
interaction or the trip, for example, overseas by Tsarnaev with
those systems, then, of course, it is not going to be in there,
right?
Mr. Davis. Correct.
Senator Ayotte. And so, therefore, when you query it, your
men and women on the streets would not have that background
even if they stopped that individual for a traffic stop,
correct?
Mr. Davis. That is correct, Senator.
Senator Ayotte. So that is the issue we have to get at. We
have to get at it to make sure it is not a one-way street. And
like I said, with great respect for the FBI, it cannot be a
one-way street. And so for the fusion centers to work and for
the BRICs to work and for our information sharing, we have to
make sure that whatever we do know about someone like Tsarnaev
in terms of what the Federal agencies are interacting with him,
if he gets on the watchlist or he is a person of interest or
how we do that and tag that, that needs to flow for you so when
your officers on the street encounter him, frankly you can give
that information to the FBI, too, and that we are all working
together hopefully to do whatever we can to prevent these kind
of attacks, and then also to make sure that officers on the
ground have the right information to interact with people
appropriately. Is that right?
Mr. Davis. Correct, Senator. If we do that, we are much
stronger as a Nation. If we do not, it puts our communities and
my officers at risk.
Senator Ayotte. Yes, that is the issue that we have to get
at. And, again, I think you are on the streets every day. The
FBI does a great job, but they are not on the streets every day
in the way that the local officers are or, in New Hampshire it
is local and State police, who are on the roads every day and
who are going to interact or encounter this person and can
understand who they are dealing with, and also transmit that
information to the Federal Government so that they can use that
in their information gathering against terrorists.
So I really appreciate all of you being here today, and
thank you for bringing this forward, because this is something
I think this Committee really can focus on to help make sure
that that information sharing is going both ways so that in the
future you will have more information at the ground level. And,
again, I just want to thank you all for what you do and what
you have done here and for the extraordinary work done by those
that you represent in your officers.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate it.
Senator Ayotte. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. As we say in political commercials, ``I am
Tom Carper, and I approve this message.''
Senator Ayotte. Well, thank you, Tom.
Chairman Carper. I could not have said it better.
Senator Ayotte. I think we can do something about this. We
should.
Chairman Carper. Yes, you bet. Jeff.
Senator Chiesa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is for Mr. Schwartz and Commissioner Davis. Looking
back at the way the information was disseminated the day of the
bombing, having two fusion centers, has there been any
discussion--understanding that there are volume concerns that
would overwhelm either one of them, are there discussions
underway to combine the resources or to create a single
clearinghouse for all of the information? Or is that something
that you do not think is either feasible or productive for your
communities?
Mr. Schwartz. For the reasons articulated by Commissioner
Davis, the focus of these two fusion centers is so different
that we do not have a problem that needs fixing, from my
perspective. We have two very good fusion centers. They work
collaboratively on a daily basis. So to me there is not a
problem to fix. So I am not aware of any discussions or need to
go down the path of consolidation.
Senator Chiesa. I am not suggesting there is a problem. I
am interested--we had one in New Jersey, and I thought it was a
very effective way to say here is our clearinghouse for the way
information comes in, irrespective of the type of information.
And so I am interested to find out from the two of you, so you
are telling me that you think it is an effective and useful way
to disseminate the information and that you do not feel that
the information is either not getting where it needs to get,
there is no breakdown in communication between the two because
that would be catastrophic if that were to occur, and that your
communities are served in a productive way?
Mr. Davis. Yes, I concur with Kurt. I believe that the way
the system has been organized and set up is very effective.
There is a very close working relationship between the two
fusion centers, and there is a whole State to take care of.
There are big cities outside of Boston that need to have the
full attention of the State system.
There is a danger of being swallowed up in the constant
activity in the metropolitan area that could occur if they were
combined. So it works right now. I think that both commanders
of both units would tell you that this is working very well,
there is no problem with the communication of information, and,
I like it the way it is.
Senator Chiesa. Thanks for all your time today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. Senator Chiesa, thank you for being here
for the entire hearing. I thought this has been an excellent
hearing. Thank you for being a part of it.
I have one more question, and we are going to start voting
in about 5 minutes, but one more question and then maybe a
closing statement.
One of the things I sometimes do at a hearing, especially
one like this where there are a lot of lessons learned--you are
all asked to give an opening statement, and sometimes I find it
helpful to ask you to give us a short, brief closing statement.
So I am going to telegraph a pitch, and the pitch is you are
going to get a chance to say a few more words, and I would ask
you just to think about it. And it could be just something that
you feel is just a real important takeaway for my colleagues
and me and for our staff. It could be something that you have
thought of listening to others speak on the panel. Repetition
is fine. You could all say the same thing if it is something
you really want us to focus on and be mindful of. That works as
well.
My last question focuses on recovery. We talked a lot about
the response today to the disaster. Later this month, Dr.
Coburn and I will hold the hearing we talked about, alluded to
where we focus on, if you will, the timeline leading up to the
tragedy, the law enforcement activities during that immediate
aftermath of the bombings, and then the ultimate apprehension
and interrogation of suspects.
But I want to close by just talking about recovery, because
we focus a whole lot on the response to the disaster but not so
much yet on how to recover. Officials have said that this might
change in the future and that recovery might be incorporated
into future exercises. And I think maybe as much for Mr.
Schwartz, but others are welcome to chime in if they want, but
let us talk about this. Did unexpected challenges pop up during
the recovery that maybe the Commonwealth, maybe the city of
Boston needed to be better prepared for? If so, what might they
be?
Mr. Schwartz. Well, there are always unexpected challenges
in any recovery, and there were in this, though I commend the
city for thinking about and moving to recovery very quickly.
Within hours of the bombings, the city opened its first
assistance center, and that is a step toward recovery, the very
night of the bombings where some people that had to sleep in a
city shelter. Runners that were stranded could not reconnect,
so recovery started very quickly with an assistance center
looking to reunite family members who scattered, runners that
were disconnected from their possessions, crisis counseling,
the Federal Government, FEMA, and DHS, the city and the State
all brought a lot of crisis counseling services to bear, and we
began those discussions just hours after the bombing and had
local, State, and Federal teams on the ground starting the very
next day. The city opened a business assistance center. The
Boylston Street area is a very heavy, dense business area.
There were dozens and dozens, more than a hundred businesses
impacted. So the city opened a business assistance center very
quickly. The Small Business Administration came in at the
Governor's request within days.
So were there challenges? Yes. One of the city's
takeaways--I have spoken with my counterpart in the city, and
she would like to focus some more time and energy in moving
forward in training and exercises on the recovery side. So
recovery is always challenging, but the need to engage in
recovery was recognized right away. The city and the State and
the Federal Government partnered right from the onset about
bringing recovery resources to bear.
Chairman Carper. OK. Mr. Serino, how can FEMA help State or
local folks to be better prepared with respect to the recovery?
Is there anything that comes to mind?
Mr. Serino. I think there are a couple of things. I think
incorporating going forward into some of our national drills to
actually look at recovery, part of the National Disaster
Recovery Framework that recently came out. And I think that is
an important part, and as Undersecretary Schwartz mentioned, we
had this conversation literally hours after the bombings in the
command post to actually look at how we can start to address
some of the recovery issues. But I think recovery is an
important part of any sort of disaster, and sometimes even the
longest part of an incident is the recovery, and we view that
as very important and are going to continue to work toward that
and develop various drills and exercises for that, and we have
already.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thank you.
For closing statements, I am going to recognize first Dr.
Kellermann. I really want to thank you again for joining us
today. When you started speaking--where did you grow up,
anyway?
Dr. Kellermann. Tennessee, sir.
Chairman Carper. My wife went to graduate school there, so
I thought I would have to get her to come in and interpret what
you were saying. [Laughter.]
But I caught on pretty quick.
Dr. Kellermann. Good.
Chairman Carper. But I thank Dr. Coburn and his staff for
recommending that you be invited to participate, and we are
glad that you were able to. But just maybe a closing statement,
if you would, please.
Dr. Kellermann. Thank you. Two things.
First, we cannot continue to make our policy decisions
based on the last disaster. We have done that for the last 15
years. It does not work.
Chairman Carper. I spent a lot of years in the Navy. We
were really good at fighting the last war.
Dr. Kellermann. We cannot keep fighting the last war. We
cannot keep reacting to the last disaster. Hospitals in Boston
were not stressed. The number of trauma patients any one
hospital got was very manageable. We cannot put seven trauma
centers in every American city. Massachusetts can barely afford
it. Our Nation cannot afford it. We have to raise our game in
America's hospitals. Hospitals cannot respond and be islands of
strength and recovery if they do not survive the disaster. And
New York Hurricane Sandy taught us 7 years after New Orleans
Hurricane Katrina that we are not paying attention to hospital
security and the strength of hospital infrastructure, so they
can be a source of strength for a community.
Chairman Carper. All right. Good. Thank you very much for
that. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Mr. Chairman, I would say please continue what
you have been doing. The money, the training, the equipment
made it possible for us to do what we did after this happened.
Working diligently on improving our systems of intelligence
sharing and continuing what we are doing around preparation and
response is really the lesson that I have learned from this.
Thank you, sir.
Chairman Carper. Yes, thank you. Mr. Schwartz.
Mr. Schwartz. First, the bombings illustrate our need to
focus more of our time and energy on catastrophic disaster
planning, major disaster planning. We did well here, but change
the scenario just a little bit in a number of different ways,
and we might have had different outcomes. So we need to
continue to focus on preparing for these large-scale disasters,
worrying about mass care and sheltering, evacuation, large-
scale communications failures, distributing critical
commodities. And related is while we have been focused on a
terrorist attack, I want to underscore that many of the
capabilities we brought to bear to respond to this terrorist
attack were built in an all-hazards world.
As I said earlier, we have had 16 Presidential Disaster
Declarations since 2008, one of those for a terrorist attack.
So we need to continue to focus in the all-hazards world and
the capabilities we build can be transferred back and forth and
are interchangeable.
Chairman Carper. Thank you. Mr. Serino.
Mr. Serino. And then we have to followup with what Kurt
said about if you look at the all-hazards, people that were on-
scene that day to take care of injured runners and to make sure
traffic flowed and to make sure people were safe from the
marathon, quickly turned from that all-hazards in order to make
a difference in people's lives, that this was truly, as we call
it, a whole community response. It was police officers,
firefighters, EMTs, paramedics. It was volunteers. It was
members of the community, the public that came up and saved
lives. It really made a difference. But ``Boston Strong'' was
no accident. It was years of planning, years of training, years
of purchasing the right equipment for the right people at the
right time, and it saved lives.
Chairman Carper. Thank you. We hold a lot of hearings here
in the Senate and over in the House as well. Some of them are
valuable, very valuable, and some are somewhat valuable. This
has been a most valuable hearing, and this has been an
exceptional panel. Thank you very much for your statements and
for your responses to our questions.
I am delighted, I am very proud of the Members of this
Committee. I am glad they were able to come. They have a lot of
committees they serve on, so they could have been in any number
of other places. But I am really pleased that they were able to
come, and for Jeff over here, the former AG from New Jersey
staying with us right to the end, I thank him.
I spoke with Senator Begich as he was just about to leave a
few minutes ago just to reiterate the great opportunity for him
and Senator Paul who chair our relevant Subcommittee that
focuses on FEMA, emergency response. There is a treasure trove
of information for us to mine and to disseminate as best we can
across the country. And that is not just our responsibility.
That is a shared responsibility, as you know.
But we thank you on behalf of my colleagues and myself and
our staffs. I just want to say to our staffs, you all did a
great job, minority and majority staff, helping to put all this
together as you have. But since September 11, 2001 our country
has worked hard to strengthen our ability, one, to prevent
terrorist attacks and, when prevention fails, to try to
mitigate the effects of those attacks.
The Boston Marathon terrorist attack unfortunately put our
response and our mitigation systems to a real test, and from
what we have heard today, we have Boston and Massachusetts
first responders, emergency planners, law enforcement
personnel, medical workers, and marathon officials, and just a
lot of citizens to thank for this. I think the cities and towns
and States from coast to coast could be well served, would be
well served if they knew and could learn the lessons that we
have learned and been reminded of here today in this hearing.
First, training and real-life exercises like Urban Shield
can save lives. They can help prepare first responders for
dealing with the chaos that ensues in the aftermath of a
disaster by helping them build the kind of relationships that
we talked about needed to work together effectively.
Second, the city and the State's emergency services planned
and prepared for the worst-case scenarios, and as a result,
many of the resources needed for an effective response were in
place at the time of the bombing.
And, last, while Boston's preparedness for and response to
the attacks were clear strengths, city and State officials have
noted that more attention needs to be paid to helping the city
cope with the long-term recovery efforts that follow a
disaster.
Again, on behalf of all of us, thank you. I think you used
the term ``Boston Strong.'' I am a huge baseball fan. I am a
huge Detroit Tigers fan. But I always root for whoever is
playing against the Yankees. Some of the best baseball games I
have ever seen were in Fenway Park, with the Tigers and also
with the Yankees. Great baseball. But the folks in Boston and
the folks in Massachusetts made us enormously proud with the
way you responded as a team to an awful tragedy and saved lives
and made sure that out of a horrible situation a lot of good
actually came. And hopefully in our efforts to mine the data,
mine what worked, and maybe what did not work so well, some
more good is going to come out of a bad situation, a very bad,
tragic situation, and help prepare another community, another
city, another State for a disaster. And there are plenty of
disasters that threaten us. Part of our challenge is to make
sure that they do not occur and that we stop them, nip them in
the bud, and that we do that 24/7. But sometimes they get, as
we have seen here, tragic. Sometimes they get by us, and
something awful happens, and we have to respond. And you
responded beautifully.
Thank you again for joining us today for a wonderful
hearing, and with that, I am going to go vote, and we will call
it a day. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:11 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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