Kevin ashton, tonight on the communicators, on cspan2. Tomorrow on washington journal, gretchen working set of morgansen talking about the Affordable Housing program. Vince is a girl soon talks about alcoholrelated problems and all fetal syndrome in drinking mothers. Washington on journal, life tuesday at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Officials with the red cross talked about economic recovery, Agency Coordination and delivery efficiency. They were joined by representatives of the Small Business administration fema, and the private sector, during a hearing on postdisaster issues for Small Businesses. Davidundtable was held by vetter of louisiana to mark the anniversary continued. Katrina. This is about an hour. Senator vitter good morning everyone. Welcome. Thank you for joining me for this discussion roundtable about a very important ongoing challenge in relation to Disaster Recovery. Natural disasters are obviously indiscriminate, affecting life, property and livelihoods of families and businesses. With this roundtable, i hope to highlight improvements made in Disaster Recovery efforts in the last decade, discuss what continuing challenges we still face, in the wake of natural disasters, and have a conversation about paths forward for Disaster Mitigation and response. This is, as you know, the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. We are going to acknowledge that. We certainly wont celebrate, but acknowledge that in a couple of weeks. I want to take the opportunity to remember the tens of thousands of families who were horribly impacted by that natural disaster. 10 years ago this month, we all experienced devastating, deadly and costly natural disaster. The most costly and devastating in american history. Hurricane katrina caused over 1200 deaths, and 108 billion in damage. The damages from that year caused 50,000 people to be unemployed by the second half of 2009. Here we are 10 years later in 2015, still dealing with the impact on top of the other significant disasters we have suffered in the last decade. Between 20082012, with more hurricanes, there was over 44 billion in damages. On october 29, 2012, Superstorm Sandy devastated the vast majority of the east coast. 131 people lost their lives, and 12 states, including the district of columbia, were declared disaster areas. The Disaster Relief appropriations effort provided a 50. 7 billion package of Disaster Assistance. The lives lost, exorbitant amount of money spent, and Lasting Impact still felt today from all of these events, are highlighted here as the foundation for discussing ways to mitigate these losses in the future, and implement strategies for recovery to get our lives back in order as soon as possible following a disaster. I witnessed firsthand after Hurricane Katrina, both the enduring strength of our communities, and the devastating failures into many cases of government in delivering recovery assistance. While businesses and communities came together, willing and able to deliver vital relief, too many times they were turned down by bureaucracy within Government Agencies. Immediately following the event, i heard reports of hellish conditions at the superdome. Witnessed unacceptably slow response times from fema, long delays in the delivery of the emergency assistance, food, water and necessities, failing evacuation systems, and ineffective federal contracting practices. Disaster relief funds either never made it to the hands of those they were intended for, or arrived too late. All of these failures obstructed vital recovery coming out of katrina, and these are just the immediate failures afterwards. Longterm Disaster Recovery assistance comes from others. Ps pa and others whose responsibility, longterm recovery loans you can get Vital Community and Economic Resources back on track. After Hurricane Katrina struck louisiana, we learned the hard way what works and what did not work in this longterm credit gory as well. After each major disaster since then, we have learned Small Businesses need extra help to get back on their feet. That is a very important focus of this discussion. As chair of the senate Small Business and entrepreneurship committee, im committed, as are all members, to serving Small Businesses across the country and ensuring they are afforded the resources and assistance they need to help them recover as well. A completely separate category, certainly important in the Hurricane Katrina and rita context is the corps of engineers and Disaster Recovery and storm protection in that category. I have done quite a bit of work on that, reforming the court process, improving how they respond before and after disasters. That has more been in the context of my work on the environment and public works committee, but certainly that is another very important piece of the equation that we may touch on here today. Earlier this year with all of these thoughts in mind, and as chair of the Small Business committee, i passed that committed as 1470, the rise after disaster act of 2015, along with legislation to address needs, protection, and recovery of all businesses in particular. The rise after disaster act reflects a number of things we have learned. I think it will definitely help future disaster victims recover more quickly and with less red tape from the federal government. Specifically, it provides longterm recovery loans to Small Businesses through Community Banks one Disaster Assistance is no longer available. It directs federal agencies to utilize local contractors for response and Recovery Efforts, rather than Government Contractors from washington dc, and other farflung areas. I also introduced a last month, the bad bipartisan natural relief tax act, providing tax relief for people who have experienced disasters. Increasing including hurricane isaac and red river floods. Working for future disasters, it will allow businesses to create National Disaster funds in order to prepare prepare for costs including insurance. I hope to focus on some of the improvements that the agencies and organizations have made since these tragic events 10 years ago. To have this discussion, we are really honored by having six great leading participants, and i want to briefly introduce them and i look forward to hearing from all of them. James rivera is the associate administrator for the Small BusinessAdministrations Office of disaster assist. During his 25 years, he has led several efforts to improve the agencys disaster operations after hurricanes katrina, rita and wilma, including development of more efficient loan and processes, computer upgrades, and other initiatives. Gerilee bennett his Deputy Director at the National DirectorateRecovery Division at fema. She has been leading recovery planning and exercising Initiative Since 2003. Including overseeing the implementation of National Discovery recovery framework. She supported Disaster Assistance through major businesses since the 1990s. Russ paulsen is the executive director for nationwide Community Preparedness and resilience building programs of the american red cross. He joins us with over 25 years of experience, leading some of the largest Disaster Response and Recovery Efforts in that organizations history. William is director of Financial Markets and Community Investment at the u. S. Government accountability office, and will be offering significant insight into todays issues having directed substantial bodies of work. Andrea is the director of the credit Programs Group in the Audit Division in the office of inspector general. She brings years of experience in investigations and oversight to the table. Finally, the leader of the Small Business development center. He has this entrepreneurs and Small Business owners start and grow businesses, including serving their communities through additional Disaster Recovery guidance. I look forward to hearing from all of you, and then we will have a discussion coming out of those observations. Why dont we start with mr. Rivera. James rivera thank you, chair for inviting us appear and our partners. We have made almost 2 million in loans for about 53 billion since we started in 1953. We are not a first responder, but im glad that jerry leads with our partners in the red cross. They do a great job with the need to get on the ground. From our perspective, we have worked diligently since the hurricanes, we have done a lot of process improvements and we continue to learn from every disaster. Most recently with sandy, we also continue to learn from that. Take a step back after both katrina and after sandy, we have now implemented a threestep process to try to simplify the process and make it easier for the survivor to have a good understanding of what we are doing. As we continue to modernize the Credit Management system, we take advantage of credit scoring opportunities on how we can approve individuals, homeowners and businesses with higher Credit Scores and put them through the system faster. We recently updated our Standard Operating Procedure to add back to basics approach. We always look at what works, what does not work, and how we can improve moving forward. I look forward to having the conversation and look forward to any questions you might have. Thank you. Senator vitter thank you mr. Rivera. Gerilee bennett thank you very much for the invitation to be here. As mr. Rivera said, fema is very pleased to be able to anticipate in this roundtable with our partners, so we have been working very closely with to improve our disaster upon that response and recovery since katrina. Their ideas in support of many disasters throughout Hurricane Sandy, hurricane isaac, which somewhat got overshadowed, we had already implemented a lot of changes even by then. I want to focus today on some of the improvements we have done in partnership with the interagency members of the national Disaster Recovery framework. The framework was developed in response to Hurricane Katrina, the postkatrina emergency reform act called for national strategy, and fema led the development that it was really a partnership of interagency partners including nongovernmental partners like the red cross. Some of the key elements of the framework are that it promotes partnership, planning for Disaster Recovery in advance, and the development and establishment of an organizational structure and leadership in advance that focuses on Disaster Recovery, not just response. One example of this is at the federal level. We have developed the economic Recovery Support function. Is led by the department of commerce, Economic Development administration, and key partners include sba, the department of treasury, the department of agriculture. Fema is also a primary partner. All of these agencies Work Together to support communities and states, and more portly, businesses, and grow businesses after devices disasters to get support they need together businesses up and running. Some of the strategies the economic Recovery Support function undertakes Economic Assessment postdisaster, what the real needs are, is this a rural disaster or Small Business kind of disaster, or an urban disaster . Is there a major employer in the area who, if that business gets back up and running, will make all the difference in the world getting people moving back into the area . They also Work Together to make sure there are Business Recovery centers, usually sponsored by the sba, and areas that have partners available to find resources available. They sponsor business roundtables and partnership in collaboration with the local chamber of commerce to make sure education, counseling, Technical Assistance and networking for resources, and support are available,. After a disaster it is a Good Opportunity to provide support and information to businesses about resilience. That never before a disaster our people as much in june to the need to be resilient, to have insurance, to have good supply networks that are also resilient. It is a good time to take advantage. Roundtables often focus on those topics. I look forward to the conversation, thank you for the invitation. Senator vitter thank you. Now we move to russ paulsen. Russ paulsen thank you for inviting the red cross to talk with our partners. I am executive director of Community Preparedness at the right cost. Before this, i had the honor of leading the recovery after hurricanes katrina, wilma, and rita. After 26 years, i have seen the importance of Small Businesses after disasters. Our goal is to make sure when disaster strikes, people have a warm, safe, and dry place to go with their families, something to eat and somewhere to go to. We do this 70,000 times a year on average. We served over 12,000 meals and snacks in north louisiana. We keep that promise after home fires that have been about every eight minutes every day, every year. We can only do this because of the financial generosity of the american people, and heroic actions of volunteers, americorps members and employees. Like kay wilkins, who organized her team to open up shelters throughout south louisiana after katrina came through. Not seeing her family for days, a young woman who had never lived away from home before she came to the new orleans area to be a red Cross Americorps member, who after being there for two weeks, was sent to run a shelter on the north shore. And who had to deal with the needs of all kinds of people, including helping a gentleman who did not have his health aide and needed help with daily living. Never had any training. But it is people who step up and do it they need to do. A young man who ran a shelter and had to figure out what to do with the shelter full of scared people when the roof started peeling back. It is heroic actions by ordinary people in the response phase, and for people who they will probably never meet again. Mr. Chairman, katrina was by some measures 10 times bigger than anything the red cross had dealt with. We served 68 million meals, we served clients who had evacuated all 48 of the united states. We had never happened before. That was only possible because of volunteers and employees. We were also able to contribute to the recovery of katrina for several years after the storm, helping people rebuild, funding summer camps, and help people Access Mental Health services, which is often not thought about. After it, like katrina, it is more than people can handle. I want to mention a component i think was helpful. We designed it almost like an Insurance Program where people can make sure they can pay the bills of independent providers, and those providers knowing they had a market, can move back to town. Recovery is such a gordian knot after a big disaster. Businesses are reluctant to come back without employees and a customer base. Residents are reluctant to come back without businesses where they can shop and work. Government cannot provide Services Without tax base. It is a really tricky proposition and often times, it is the Small Business that comes back first. And then people come back around it. Katrina caught all of us, there are some disasters bigger than any of us. For years we worked with the sba and fema, but we learned we have to work not only with traditional partners, but people who normally would not get involved here it now we have faithbased service and other urbanizations who had not worked in disasters before. Now we work with catholic charities, islamic relief, lutheran church, methodist church, church of latter day saints, partnerships like the naacp and National Council of rossa, center for inde