Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, I rise in support of H.R. 8416, the ``Disasters of Survivors Fairness Act of 2022.'' The Federal Emergency Management…
Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, I rise in support of H.R. 8416, the ``Disasters of Survivors Fairness Act of 2022.''
The Federal Emergency Management Agency's mission is to help Americans prepare for, respond, and recover from disasters.
From day one, FEMA has been committed to protecting and serving Americans who have been impacted by disasters.
Unfortunately, though, the toll of disasters is much greater on most Americans than it is on those who are wealthier.
A 2020 FEMA National Advisory Committee report stated that disaster relief programs ``provide an additional boost to wealthy homeowners and others with less need, while lower-income individuals and others sink further into poverty after disasters.''
It is unfair that any survivor of disasters must suffer because of disparities in FEMA disaster response that have gone unchallenged for far too long.
For example, FEMA records show that low-income homeowners were denied 30 percent of the time compared to higher-income owners, who were denied 13 percent of the time, a 17-point difference.
Unfortunately, these disparities reveal the experience of African American and Hispanic Americans.
Threats posed by natural disasters intensify existing social and racial and ethnic inequities. After a natural disaster, people in disadvantaged communities have worse outcomes due to stresses or exposures to other risks associated with a disaster.
Low-income people and people of color are more likely to live in disaster-prone areas, live in lower-quality housing that is less safe when disasters occur, and have chronic illnesses that make them more vulnerable.
As climate change accelerates and intensifies, the natural disasters that it causes take a steeper toll each year.
Since climate change affects health in a variety of ways, disaster mitigation and response planning must be scoped in advance to ameliorate the consequences, hardships, and inequities.
To ensure that FEMA will lead equitable health interventions during disaster response, we must enable it to provide evidence-based policy, programming, and service delivery designed to protect health and promote health equity during disaster response and recovery.
Our nation is ill-prepared to deal with successive extreme weather events occurring nearly simultaneously, just as in 2017, when Hurricanes Harvey, Jose and Maria hit within days of each other, while wildfires burned in California.
One thing is certain after speaking with the people of Houston who, unfortunately, are all too familiar with these problems: We require a disaster recovery system that is designed to help the people who truly need it.
H.R. 8416 would:
develop a universal application for federal disaster assistance;
remove the requirement that households must be rendered uninhabitable;
authorize the president to provide direct assistance to individuals and households;
remove the requirement that a household must be rendered uninhabitable;
allow FEMA to enter agreements with state agencies to provide funding for a website that will have information related to post disaster recovery funding and resources; and save taxpayer dollars by ensuring that FEMA resources are going to those who need the most help.
I have seen the dedication and hard work of FEMA professionals who provide relief to victims of disasters. But the unending string of disasters is stretching the fabric of emergency response systems across the nation. The pain and financial hardship that they cost the American people can be seen in headlines across the country.
We in Congress must do our part to enable FEMA to do more without diminishing the support of communities before, during, and after disasters.
No one was prepared for five days of subfreezing temperatures, ice- and snow-covered roads, and a failed energy grid throughout the state of Texas.
Texas power providers, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Entergy Corporation, did not provide the needed weatherization of power generating and delivery equipment after being warned in 2011 after a cold snap that the system would fail if these steps were not taken.
The number of additional deaths uses mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compare the number of deaths from all causes that were reported in Texas during and after the storm with the number of fatalities that are normally reported during ordinary conditions.
That method is known as ``excess fatalities'' and has been employed during other disasters, like the COVID-19 pandemic, to estimate related death tolls.
In the aftermath of the storm millions of Texans struggled with the effects of the deadly winter storm, people of color and low-income communities who were disproportionately affected by blackouts and burst pipes could now face the hardest journey to recovery, experts said.
Hurricane Harvey hit a thousand square mile of Texas, just as in the past when Ike struck, but the telling sign of Blue Tarp Roofs are only in low-income, black, and brown communities' years after the storms have passed.
In the past the tools and resources available to FEMA to support disaster reponse and recovery have been limited to meals, water, trap.
Local, tribal, territorial, and state governments had to make request for aid to be provided.
For more substantial assistance, government contracting, and awards must be put into place, which can take months and in some cases years to get resources to victims.
This is too much time for survivors to have to wait for help.
The historic winter weather exacerbated pre-existing disparities like poor infrastructure and lack of resources in marginalized communities. Black and Latino communities who were disproportionately hit by COVID- 19 now must struggle to recover from one of the worst weather events to ever hit Texas.
The nine-county Houston metro area impacted by Hurricane Harvey covers 9,444 square miles, an area larger than five states. Including New Hampshire, New Jersy, and Connecticut.
Hurricane Harvey dropped 21 trillion gallons of rainfall on Texas and Louisiana, most of it on the Houston Metroplex.
At its peak on September 1, 2017, one-third of Houston was underwater.
Hurricane Harvey is the largest housing disaster to strike the U.S. in our nation's history.
Hurricane Harvey damaged 203,000 homes, of which 12,700 were destroyed.
These are not simply numbers, these are families. Son and daughters, mothers and fathers, friends, mentors, and caretakers, all who are deserving of ample disaster response and recover efforts.
There was no way to pre-prepare for Hurricanes Harvey, Katrina, Ian, or any of the other major disaster event.
What we can do is learn as much as possible and apply those lessons to future disaster response and recovery efforts.
When there is a catastrophic event, like Hurricane Harvey, there are important and valuable lessons that can help us to meet future challenges.
My constituents in Houston understand that our capacity to deal with hurricanes directly reflects our ability to respond to a terrorist attack in Texas or New York, an earthquake in California, or a nationwide pandemic.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared that COVID- 19 was a pandemic, which had by that date reached at least 114 countries, sickening over 100,000 people, and killing more than 4,000.
It is the duty of Congress to make sure that FEMA is prepared to meet any challenge while bringing equity to the response made during disasters.
The work of the FEMA Office of Disaster Recovery and the Office of Disaster Recovery are critical when disaster strikes and for this reason, they should be a permanent part of the agency.
This is one of the reasons, I introduced the FEMA Modernization Act (H.R. 3060) in the 116th Congress.
