An aerial view from a Coast Guard Search and Rescue helicopter shows the flooding of the Guadalupe River and the surrounding area near Kerrville on July 5.Po3 Cheyenne Basurto/U.S. Coast/Planet Pix/ZUMA
The devastating floods that hit central Texas last Friday have now killed at least 120 people, including dozens of children, according to authorities, and left at least 150 missing. But the leaders at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) tasked with supporting communities in the wake of similar disasters have been missing in action, according to a slate of recent damning reports.
For one, FEMA Acting Administrator David Richardson is nowhere to be found, according to multiple reports. A former Marine, Richardson appears to have no experience leading disaster management. Yet in his current role, Richardson—who made headlines after he reportedly told FEMA staff that he was unaware the US has a hurricane season (White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed that as a “joke”) and threatened to “run right over” anyone who got in his way—is federally mandated to be responsible for providing national leadership in preparation for, and in response to, natural disasters. In the past, FEMA administrators have typically been among the first responders at disaster sites to help manage the response.
Former FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told E&E News that the head of FEMA should be on the ground “to talk to local officials, talk to the people that have been impacted, see firsthand what the damages are—and make sure FEMA was directing the appropriate resources as fast as possible into the appropriate area.”
But FEMA staffers say that whatever Richardson is doing, it’s not that. Not only has he reportedly made no public appearances since assuming his role—which did not require Senate confirmation—he has also yet to arrive in Texas since the July 4 tragedy struck.
“I have no idea what’s going on with David Richardson’s absence,” one FEMA employee told E&E News.
“If this is how they are going to do a major hurricane response, people are fucked,” one FEMA source told independent journalist Marisa Kabas, author of the newsletter The Handbasket.
Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees FEMA and several other agencies, seems to have effectively taken over Richardson’s role. She arrived in Texas within days of the floods, conducting a press conference with Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) and touring the hardest-hit sites, including Camp Mystic, the Christian girls’ camp where at least 27 children, counselors, and staff died. But Noem has also sought to downplay the federal government’s role in responding to the disaster: “We, as a federal government, don’t manage these disasters—the state does. We come in and support them, and that’s exactly what we did here in this situation,” Noem said at a Cabinet meeting earlier this week.
“We as a federal government don’t manage these disasters—the state does. We come in and support them, and that’s exactly what we did here in this situation.”
But new reporting suggests that Noem is obstructing federal action in fulfilling even the more limited role she envisions. According to a memo obtained by CNN last month, Noem has demanded to personally approve all DHS contracts and grants worth more than $100,000, a process she has reportedly warned would take at least five days per request. “This will hurt nonprofits, states, and small towns. Massive delays feel inevitable,” one FEMA official told CNN last month.
It appears that’s already happening in Texas. Four FEMA officials told CNN in a story published on Wednesday that Noem’s new rule has slowed the Texas response. Multiple sources told that outlet that Noem did not authorize the agency’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams—which are normally stationed close to disaster zones as the importance of their role becomes clear—until Monday, more than three days after the flooding began. (As the Daily Beast points out, Noem managed to find some time on Sunday to ask her Instagram followers which portrait of her they would prefer to hang in the Capitol of South Dakota, where she was previously governor.)
Aerial imagery from FEMA that Texas officials requested to support search and rescue was also delayed due to Noem’s insistence on personally approving those requests; she has also yet to okay a contract to bolster support staff at a disaster call center, where FMEA staff have been fielding phones, and callers have faced longer wait times, the staff told CNN.
CNN and The Handbasket reported that by Monday, only 86 FEMA staffers had been deployed to Texas, a smaller team than would typically be on the ground to respond to such a disaster. By Tuesday night, 311 staffers in total had been deployed, according to CNN. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County—the epicenter of the floods—which unlocks federal funding and resources to support the emergency response and longer-term recovery. But only 25 households out of more than 20,000 in Kerr County have thus far received funding from that pot of money, according to FEMA’s website. A former FEMA official told E&E News that they “would be asking the regional [FEMA] administrator why that number is so low and what can we do to improve registrations.” (Texas lacks a regional FEMA administrator.)
On Wednesday, congressional Democrats serving on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure wrote to FEMA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) questioning whether Richardson will visit Texas, how many FEMA personnel have been deployed there, and whether Noem and Trump plan to move forward with trying to abolish FEMA, among other questions related to recent reporting about the agency’s failures. “It would be unconscionable to face the next extreme weather event with a FEMA and NWS [National Weather Service] that are anything less than fully resourced to respond from the earliest forecast through the last delivery of relief,” the lawmakers write, asking for a response by July 22.
But Noem has already managed to answer one of the Democrats’ questions: She does, indeed, want to abolish FEMA. At a public meeting on Wednesday, Noem blasted FEMA for being too slow to respond without acknowledging her own role in perpetuating the delays. “It has been slow to respond at the federal level,” Noem said of FEMA. “It’s even been slower to get the resources to Americans in crisis, and that is why this entire agency needs to be eliminated as it exists today, and remade into a responsive agency.”
When Mother Jones reached out to FEMA for comment, there was no reply. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the agency has taken “an all-hands-on-desk approach to respond to recovery efforts” in Texas, but she did not answer a series of detailed questions about Noem’s and Richardson’s alleged actions based on the reports cited here.