The acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is pushing back on criticisms of th
e federal response to the central Texas floods that killed at least 136 people earlier this month.
“I can’t see anything we did wrong,” David Richardson told a House panel of the Committee on Transport
ation and Infrastructure on Wednesday. He called the relationship between state and federal agencies “a model for how disasters should be handled.”
Lawmakers used the hearing about improvements to FEMA disaster response to address reports that FEMA support was impaired by bureaucratic
delays that slowed the deployment of urban search and rescue teams and left the agency’s call centers unstaffed, which Richardson denied. The response “broug
ht the maximum amount of capability to bear in Texas at the right time and the right place,” he said.
Richardson’s appearance came after a wave of criticism and fallout over the response, including the resignation Monday of FEMA’s urban search and rescue
leader. President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have touted the robust federal support for Texas despite their past support for eliminating FEMA.
Reports of delays on the ground denied
The acting administrator denied reports that FEMA urban search-and-rescue teams were delayed over 72 hours because of a new rule imposed by Noe
m that she must personally approve any contract of $100,000 or more. Richardson said a Texas-based FEMA task force was on the ground on July 4, along with oth
er Homeland Security assets like the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection, and that additional support came within “24 hours” of being requested.
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Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., pushed back on FEMA’s readiness, asking why more of the 28 FEMA urban search-
nd-rescue teams located around the country were not on standby ahead of receiving a request from the state of Texas. “It
haunts me that we could have had more urban search and rescue pre-positioned in place,” said Stanton. “That was a choice.”
The leader of FEMA’s urban search-and-rescue effort, Ken Pagurek, expressed frustration with the delays to colleagues before resigning Monday, according to CNN. In response to Pagurek’s resignation, a DHS spokesperson told The Associated Press, “It is laughable that a career public employee, who claims to serve the American people, would choose to resign over our refusal to hastily approve a six-figure deployment contract without basic financial oversight.”