The Senate committee on Intergovernmental Relations met to discuss interim charge 3, “review natural disaster preparedness planning and coordination in the wake of a growing range of threats.”
Opening Statements
Senator Eddie Lucio
- Recognizes the members who attended, comments that housing reconstruction and disaster recovery is a very important issue
- Addressing disaster recovery issues in one area has great implication for the rest of the state, Texas should collaborate
Mayor Tony Martinez, Brownsville
- Thanks everyone for coming to the hearing, stresses the importance of addressing disaster recovery
Veronica Gonzales, UT Rio Grande Valley
- Thanks and welcomes all in attendance, including UT Rio Grande Valley students
Panel 1. General Land Office and Department of Public Safety
Dr. Ken Wisian, Coastal Protection, General Land Office
- Provides information on money distribution from FEMA and other public sector recovery services
- FEMA comes in immediately after a disaster and offer monetary assistance to homeowners and local governments including temporary housing, reimbursement, and partial coverage of housing loss (max ~$34,000)
- FEMA will provide coverage up to 75% for public infrastructure damage
- HUD grants are appropriated by congress, only about 10% of disasters that reach a presidential recommendation will go “all the way” to receiving a HUD grant
- HUD receives appropriation roughly 9 to 12 months after a disaster, so response is much slower than FEMA
- HUD funding is for community development and revitalization, requiring planning and demonstration of need, intended for those in communities who cannot recover on their own (uninsured or underinsured individuals)
- Substantial improvements have been made in areas the GLO has control of
Katy Sellers, Disaster Recovery Program, General Land Office
- Talks about process after HUD funding reaches communities, development of projects and eligibility determinations are made
- Communities are assessed including sufficiency of housing
- Typically, residents are not “waiting” for HUD funding, HUD focuses on rebuilding communities and affected residents who do not have housing will likely have moved on by the time HUD funding is granted
- HUD funding is also used for projects communities have not been able to undertake alone, such as new roads, road expansion, or drainage overhauls
- FEMA is primarily clean-up focused, HUD and GLO are focused on revitalization and help communities build and improve long-term solutions to prevent the need for government intervention in the future
- GLO is focused on reducing fraud to protect state from wasting funds and finding ways to increase efficiency and capacity of funding, such as focusing on projects with multiple impacts
Tony Pena, Region 3 State Coordinator, DPS
- DPS’s Department of Emergency Management is focused on helping the state utilize funds acquired for disaster management and recovery
- In the initial stages of a disaster, TDEM works with FEMA and constructs Disaster Summary Outlines, which categorize the losses suffered by a community, in essence they are the first assessors who tell the state the extent of damage and need
- TDEM triggers the Presidential Disaster Declaration through the Governor’s Office, which allows a lot of funding to flow to the affected areas, flows to several areas
- FEMA local assistance grants, inspected by TDEM and passed through to local governments
- FEMA individual assistance, flows directly from FEMA to individuals
- SBA loans, which help small businesses recover
- FMAG, large wildfires threatening houses will trigger funding automatically without requiring government action
- TDHCA, requires state and presidential declaration
- HUD funding comes “way after the fact”
- TDEM manages $164 million, generally pre-designated pass through funds for past disasters
- Federal disaster grants total $138 million, also pass through funds from the federal government
Panel 1 Questions
- Sen. Lucio asks for recommendations that Texas can implement to ensure speedy reconstruction
- Sellers responds that pre-planning is very important, waiting until the disaster hits is often too late and general disaster planning can save lots of funding dollars (housing plans, etc.)
- Dr. Wisian comments that some actions can be run in parallel with each other and not wait for one project to be completed, pre-planning is one aspect of this
- Pena responds that TDEM has added several disaster financial coordinators to train local governments to properly document disaster response money spent
- Sen. Nichols comments that resources are generally spent the most during the initial disaster response, first month response is crucial and funding is used very quickly, asks if there is a way to educate people on pre-planning to help with reimbursements and matching funds
- Pena responds that TDEM has a public task force to educate responders on funding sources and disaster management
- Governor, county judges, and mayors are the parties responsible for emergency management funding
- One issue is that county emergency manager positions do not have a lot of continuity, seems to be a local political problem
- Sen. Nichols comments that local management does not get reimbursed if exact processes are not in place
- Reimbursement processes are not in place, public task force educators are there to educate local governments
- Sen. Nichols recommends a training session or hearing every few years
- TDEM has constant education programs to teach local officials, but oftentimes key personnel are not always available
- Sen. Nichols thinks that working with TDHCA is very cumbersome, process is confusing and has many intermediaries
- Sen. Lucio wants to codify in statute the best practices and lessons learned from past reconstruction efforts
- Sen. Nichols asks what the state needs to do to pursue parallel processes in disaster relief
- Dr. Wisian responds that state gave GLO several FTEs to use in lieu of funds, trying to get authorization to use these FTEs in disaster response
- A lot of potential parallel processes are not within Texas’ control
- Sen. Nichols invites all suggestions, legislature can work with federal partners to pursue this
- GLO is working on proposals currently, federal loosening of FEMA accounting requirements would help
- Sen. Garcia asks what GLO charges as an administrative fee
- HUD allows only 5%, GLO is currently under that and shares fee with local communities, currently around 2.5%
- FEMA has very few programs that grant funds up front, most are reimbursement schedule programs, all FEMA programs require local matches
- Sen. Garcia comments that uncertain funding can disrupt disaster management plans
- Sen. Lucio comments that a hearing will be held over Hurricane Ike-related issues over the summer
- TDEM Emergency management coordinators will need additional support to properly educate local personnel
- Sen. Garcia asks if there is any state mandated training for emergency management personnel
- TDEM has an internal learning program and track of achievement, though not required throughout the state
- Sen. Garcia would like to explore requiring training
Panel 2, Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council, Texas A&M Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, Texas Low Income Housing Information Service
Ken Jones, Executive Director, Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council
- Total HUD funding to LRGVDC was a little over $240 million, in groups of $55 million, $59 million, and $126 million
- LRGVDC was tasked with utilizing these funds, distributed to local governments for non-housing reconstruction, regional draining, and multi-family rental development
- GLO acted as the distributor for $119 million, LRGVDC was the grantee of the remaining amount
- LRGVDC expects all projects to be completed by the end of this year
- Efforts have included relocating disaster-affected homeowners into other unaffected existed homes
- LRGVDC attempts to work closely with GLO to develop effective disaster management strategies
- LRGVDC recommends continuing to work closely with the GLO, incorporate local development councils in the process, build upon the lessons learned from Ike, and allow grant recipients to be responsible for all of the contract execution to encourage efficacy
- Sen. Larry Taylor asks what happens with old property in relocations
- Old property is demolished and Council takes ownership of it, GLO authorized donation or open sale
- Sen. Taylor asks after the multifamily specifics
- Housing authorities take control of the usage, at least 50% need to be allocated for low income use
- Sen. Nichols asks how much the Council takes as an administrative percentage
- Funds have a 2% administrative fee cap, Council used roughly 1.
Dr. Walter Peacock, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, Texas A&M
- Hazard Reduction and Recovery center deals primarily with mitigation of and recovery from disasters
- Dr. Peacock was personally interested in Texas A&M’s focus on disaster planning
- Timely intervention is important to redevelop communities and long term recovery planning is essential for timely intervention to be effective
John Henneberger, Texas Low Income Housing Information Service
- Also interested in long term planning strategies, thinks TDEM has been largely effective
- Has learned a lot from LRGVDC and its efforts to plan for disasters
- 3 shortfalls exist with long term disaster recovery: it takes too long, it costs too much, and not enough lessons are learned
- Committee should focus on establishing goals in statute for long term disaster recovery:
- Every Texan who suffers loss of home should be returned to permanent housing within 1 year
- No disaster survivor should be displaced from community for more than 30 days
- State should work to recover the maximum number of housing possible with the funding available
- State should also tailor rebuilding programs to local needs, but local authorities need help to plan before a disaster occurs
- Perhaps merge FEMA short term housing programs with long term housing projects, perhaps RAPIDO can be used in other communities, but it might be a good fit
- Sen. Taylor asks why the RAPIDO program might not fit Galveston
- Does not have specific examples, but does not think legislature should dictate a specific program, rather set general goals for rebuilding within time periods etc.
- State should work with local authorities to find good solutions for their individuals communities
- Sen. Taylor comments that FEMA process takes almost as long as Henneberger’s ideal goals, it is not very realistic to set goals that have to deal with matters out of state control
- Clock should start until FEMA programs have begun, but state should encourage FEMA to keep communities together and work with long term disaster recovery
- Sen. Taylor comments that volunteers are very effective in disaster recovery efforts
Shannon Van Zandt, Hazard Reduction Recover Center, Texas A&M
- To achieve goals, we have to plan ahead of time
- We’ve developed body of research specifically based on disaster recovery and a large amount of that research is specifically done in Texas
- Developed Texas Postal Atlas information system for communities
- Texas Target Communities partners with communities to enhance their unique needs
- Recovery process should include the development of a firm fact basis that assesses the community exposure to the full scope of disasters we see in Texas
- Which areas are at risk of damage
- Characteristics that influence a household’s ability to recover
- There is a window of time that resources come through, so communities need to be ready
- These fixes increase communities ability to efficiently recover
- Sen. Taylor asks if this is done for a number of different communities
- Yes, we are currently working in Liberty County in the vision process where we find out what stakeholders need
- AgriLife is paying for work in Liberty County, but some counties have paid us directly
Panel 3
Nick Mitchell Bennett, Community Development Corporation of Brownsville
- As mentioned before, pre-planning is the most important component of recovery
- RAPIDO is designed to foster resilience and facilitate recovery
- Four Recommendations
- Pre-disaster mapping and risk assessment is extremely important – know where things will be damaged before they are damaged
- Use community based organizations to do outreach and find out who has been effected by disaster
- Development of Navigator role to help families through application process, design process, and moving into new house – can have case load of 30-40 families
- Preparedness and training – we are not ready to recover and we need goals
- We need to push on FEMA and HUD because federal funding for temporary and permanent housing are separated, but should not be
- RAPIDO can put up “cores” in four days which can then be expanded into full houses as time and money allow
Brent Brown, Building Community Workshop
- 4 obstructions to RAPIDO
- Procurement
- Local regulations and permitting – if we wait until after a storm to go through permitting process, it will add months before any construction can occur
- Site location of a house – how it gets placed, how it works for the family, how it works for the neighborhood structure
- Overall community acceptance – many times communities do not like what has been built in their community after the house has been built
- Recommendations
- Use of a temporary-to-permanent solution, incrementally adding value until it is a permanent home
- Disaster recovery planning
- Develop house designs – this sounds small, but helps with procurement process in knowing more about climate, building practices, etc.
- Overall needs to start at the earliest moment possible to be recovering and not just responding
Meeting Adjourned
