The Trump administration official running the Federal Emergency Management Agency testified Wednesday the response to Texas during the flash flooding over the Fourth of July weekend served as an “outstanding” model for the rest of the country.
His conclusions about the catastrophic flooding, which had a death toll of 135 and included extensive search and rescue operations, were questioned by several members of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee holding the hearing.
David Richardson, the senior official performing the duties of FEMA administrator, told the panel that he “can’t see anything that we did wrong.”
“The response in Texas, which was community-led, state managed and federally supported, brought the maximum amount of capability to bear in Texas at the right time and the right place,” Richardson said. “We made that happen and that is a model of how response should be done.”
Richardson testified that in his view “emergency management is not a pile-on sport. It’s well coordinated, relies on personal relationships, it’s got to be exercised beforehand. And all those things came together on Texas’ worst day.”
‘Texas got what they needed’
Richardson told the panel that while he was on vacation when the Texas flooding began and for several days afterward, he “remained in my truck the whole time” making phone calls to state and federal officials.
“Texas got what they needed when they needed it,” he testified.
When asked by Texas Republican Rep. Brian Babin “what steps will FEMA take to ensure that something like this will never happen again,” Richardson said the agency works “as closely as we can with emergency managers in Texas and the local communities.”
“Through mitigation grants, resilience and those type of efforts, we work with them to build the best emergency management system we can have,” Richardson said. “And as you saw in Texas, under the secretary’s leadership and the president’s leadership, it worked very, very well.”
Arizona Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton, ranking member on the subcommittee, rejected Richardson’s characterization that the Texas response and recovery efforts were handled appropriately.
“It haunts me that we could have had more urban search and rescue pre-positioned in place,” Stanton said. “We could have saved more of those people.”
Stanton alleged that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s requirement that any contract costing more than $100,000 get her approval hindered federal search and rescue operations.
“That bottleneck delayed urban search and rescue teams for more than 72 hours,” he said. “By the time many urban search and rescue teams reached Texas, no one had been found alive for days.”
Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry, chairman of the subcommittee, appeared to defend FEMA’s approach to the Texas flooding, saying it’s not possible for FEMA to pre-position resources for all flood warnings.
“Flood warnings happen all across the country on a regular basis and FEMA doesn’t pre-position to every flood warning it gets because they would pre-position literally 365 days a year,” Perry said. “That having been said, with fast-moving disasters, like the one that occurred in Texas, it is not like a hurricane, which you can track, you can anticipate landfall or the location of the disaster to pre-position assets.”
Call-in center in Texas floods
Richardson defended staffing and wait times for FEMA’s call-in center during the two-hour hearing, rejecting reports that people were unable to get through to representatives following the Texas floods.
Stanton said that Noem’s sign-off policy on higher cost contracts caused issues here as well.
“On July 5, less than 24 hours after the tragedy, FEMA’s call center contract expired because of this $100,000 sign-off policy,” he said. “The result, the vast majority of calls from survivors went unanswered. Families desperate for shelter and aid were met with silence.
“Can you imagine losing a family member, losing your home and having your call go unanswered when you’re looking for a lifeline?”
Perry said that the subcommittee was told by another FEMA official that the call center prioritizes people in a disaster area when that disaster is ongoing, but emphasized the panel expected the correct information.
“So you might be getting calls into the call center from across the country, but the ones outside the disaster response area are put kind of behind the ones that are priority, which is the disaster that’s occurring now,” Perry said. “We don’t want to say that anybody is distorting the truth, but we got to make decisions on the correct information.”
Richardson testified that FEMA surged staff to the call center following the Texas flooding, but that Monday was an especially busy day for people contacting the agency.
“All calls were answered within three minutes … and no calls beyond 10 minutes. So it’s from three to 10 minutes,” Richardson said. “And the vast majority of phone calls were answered. The questions were addressed.”
Eliminate FEMA?
Richardson declined to say whether the Trump administration will try to completely eliminate FEMA, saying that the president “wants a better emergency management capability.”
President Donald Trump launched a FEMA review council earlier this year to assess how the agency, which is housed within the Department of Homeland Security, operates and where changes could be made.
Trump and Noem have repeatedly said they think the federal government could get rid of FEMA. Richardson said he expects the review council to issue its recommendations later this year.
This post contains content that was first published on Georgia Recorder and republished here under a Creative Commons License. Read the original article.
