"On a Friday morning in July, shortly after deadly Independence Day floods swept through parts of Texas Hill Country packed with camps full of young children, the Federal Emergency Management Agency scrambled to coordinate a response. The next afternoon, teams readied search-and-rescue crews, imagery and other emergency equipment. Then their hustling hit a roadblock. They couldn't reach a key U.S. official needed to deploy the resources, one required by law to be accessible during emergencies: FEMA's acting administrator, David Richardson."
"Just a few weeks earlier, his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, instituted a policy requiring her approval for any expenditure over $100,000. That meant, in order to deploy resources to Texas, FEMA officials needed Richardson to get those requests in front of Noemfast. ... Nobody could get a hold of him for hours and hours, said one D.C.-based senior official who coordinated search-and-rescue resources."
Deadly Independence Day floods in Texas Hill Country prompted FEMA to scramble search-and-rescue teams and emergency equipment, but deployment stalled when officials could not reach the acting administrator. FEMA's acting administrator, David Richardson, was required by law to be accessible during emergencies yet was unreachable for hours. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem instituted a policy requiring her approval for any expenditure over $100,000, forcing FEMA to route requests through her. Current and former agency officials describe a general lack of urgency since Richardson became acting director in May. Internal messages, emails, and records corroborate delays and coordination problems during the Texas floods.
Read at www.esquire.com
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