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Pelosi: 1906 Earthquake Is a Reminder of the Necessity for Emergency Preparedness

April 19, 2006

Pelosi: 1906 Earthquake Is a Reminder of the Necessity for Emergency Preparedness

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Contact: Brendan Daly/Jennifer Crider, 202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. â€" House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke yesterday at a luncheon commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Below are Pelosi’s remarks:

â€Å"Thank you, Chris, for that introduction and for your leadership to bring greater structural safety to our city, and our country. Your work, literally, saves lives.

â€Å"I especially want to acknowledge that on this day, as we observe the 100th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake, this gives us a chance to reflect not only on how San Francisco rose from the flames, but also our lessons learned about emergency preparedness.

â€Å"While our recent memories of tragedies such as Hurricane Katrina remind us of the terrible damage wrought by a natural disaster, we also remember the great lengths that neighbors will go to help others in need. Lotta’s Fountain, where many of you in this room and others gathered this morning, is a symbol of how our community came together to meet the needs of those who survived the 1906 quake.

â€Å"One hundred years ago today, our great city of San Francisco was struck by an earthquake that shook the entire western United States. The earthquake and the subsequent fires left our bustling city, known then as ‘the Paris of the West,’ in ruins within minutes. Three thousand people lost their lives; City Hall was destroyed in seconds; 28,000 other buildings were gone within 3 days; and 225,000 people were left homeless.

â€Å"On this day it is important to reflect upon that. We need to appreciate what our exposure will be, and I know you are doing important work in that regard, and what our vulnerability is now.

â€Å"And yet, one year after the 1906 earthquake, a newspaper reported, and I quote, ‘A miracle was wrought. Discipline was restored in a day; orderly government was established in a week; relief was organized almost before there was hunger to assuage; reorganization was planned before the destruction was complete, and begun before the ashes had cooled.’

â€Å"Not so today. Nearly five years after the attacks of 9/11, we cannot make that claim. Don’t take it from me; look at the report of the independent, bipartisan 9/11 Commission. They have given Congress and the Administration D’s and F’s in implementing the Commission’s recommendations.

â€Å"Ninety-five percent of all containers coming into our ports are not screened; nor is the cargo in our planes. Our country is doing almost nothing to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. We still have not adequately invested in our public health infrastructure to protect America from biological terrorism or pandemics such as the avian flu. And we still have not provided our first responders with the training, equipment, and cutting edge technology they need.

â€Å"We saw how tragic that failure was in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. If we are to prevent failures like this in the future, we first need to do a better job of understanding the risks we face from natural, as well as man-made, disasters, and sometimes, they come in a pair â€" Katrina did â€" a natural disaster to begin with, a man-made disaster afterwards because of the failure to respond adequately.

â€Å"The threats we face today range from an improvised explosive device placed on a roadside, to a nuclear weapon placed in a shipping container; from a threat as tiny as a virus, to as huge as Katrina; from the threat of single terrorist, to the threat of a rogue nation.

â€Å"Once we understand these threats we have a moral obligation and responsibility to meet them. That is why as House Democratic Leader, I pledge to you that on the first day that Democrats take control of Congress we will pass legislation to implement many of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. I hope we do not have to wait that long.

â€Å"It is unfair to our first responders that nearly five years after 9/11 we still have not taken action to give them the equipment they need to respond, to communicate, and to save lives.

â€Å"We also need to encourage better communication before disaster strikes. As James Lee Witt has said, ‘If you don’t plan together, train together, and exercise together, how in the world are you going to respond together? …You don’t want to be swapping business cards on the scene.’

â€Å"Just as we must act quickly to meet the threats, we also must act quickly to respond to them. That is why, in addition to making the 9/11 Commission recommendations law on the very first day, that same day we will also pass legislation to remove FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security and to make FEMA an independent agency at the cabinet-level. It was never a good idea to put it under the Homeland Security Department, and in the future, that change will be made.

â€Å"During the 1990s, under the leadership of James Lee Witt, we saw how given the proper organization and the right staff, FEMA was effective in providing emergency relief and recovery efforts. Today, however, FEMA needs to be more than a dumping ground for political cronies, and it needs to be more than just one of 22 federal agencies that have been lumped into the Department of Homeland Security. It is time to make FEMA what it was at its best â€" an independent, accountable, well-run, cabinet-level agency. I am glad to see your enthusiasm for that.

â€Å"The third initiative we will undertake is to enact a Real Security Agenda. We have put this in writing and it will be available to any of you who wish to access it. I hope this can be a bipartisan effort because making America safer should not be a partisan exercise.

â€Å"Finally, when recovering from a natural or man-made disaster, we must ensure that we not only rebuild the buildings, but maintain the character that marks the diversity of this city.

â€Å"I don’t know if you know this, but at the time of the 1906 earthquake, a few days later, the San Jose Mercury newspaper on the peninsula, wrote that with this earthquake an opportunity was given to rid San Francisco of its Chinatown, of its foreigners. Of course it was very high priced real estate and there were those that were eyeing it. But they used a xenophobic argument to say that they were foreigners and that land should be used for a different purpose. It was a terrible thought then and even traces of it were seen in New Orleans when Katrina hit. It has no place in any recovery program.

â€Å"As we rebuild the structures, we must also rebuild the communities so that when people return to their communities, they are truly returning home.

â€Å"As I mentioned, the primary responsibility of any government is the safety and security of its people. Too often, our government failed to fulfill that responsibility because we have failed to learn from experience.

â€Å"An exception to that was Senator Al Alquist. As mentioned, we lost him just a matter of weeks ago, but his legacy lives in on in the spirit of this conference and the work of Chris Poland. It is fitting that you gave an award named for Al Alquist, who was responsible for creating California’s Seismic Safety Commission. Just as Al championed preparedness, the work being done by all of you will make us safer should the big one strike again. I wish you much success in your deliberations. A great deal is dependent upon it.

â€Å"It will be the responsibility of governments when we receive your report â€" from San Francisco to Sacramento to Washington, D.C. â€" to not only act on your earthquake recommendations, but also to anticipate other threats, and to prepare an approach that is swift, smart, and strong.

â€Å"Only then will we have a system of disaster preparedness and response that honors our responsibilities to protect and defend the American people.

â€Å"Thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you today.”