A bombshell report from The Washington Post revealed that following the deadly Texas flood this summer that killed at least 138 people, the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency could “not be reached for 24 hours,” and the Trump administration’s new defense left one former FEMA official stunned.
The Trump administration has faced waves of scrutiny for its response to the Texas flood disaster, a slow response that was exacerbated by new policies requiring all FEMA expenditures over $100,000 to be personally approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, creating a bottleneck for rescue efforts.
The Washington Post’s new reporting on Wednesday, however, shed light on another potential contributor to the inadequate and slow disaster response – that FEMA’s acting administrator, David Richardson, could not be reached following the flood for an entire 24 hours, which MSNBC’s Chris Jansing said Thursday meant “key resource deployment could not be approved.”
“Search and rescue teams that are typically on the ground within 12 to 24 hours of a disaster didn't show up for four days,” Jansing said.
Appearing on Jansing’s show Thursday was Jeremy Edwards, former FEMA deputy director, who, in addition to being outraged at the response in general, took great issue with the Trump administration’s defense of Richardson’s absence.
When asked about Richardson’s absence, FEMA Press Secretary Daniel Llargues said that “many in the federal government, including acting administrator Richardson, have loving families to attend to and to take care of, President Trump and Secretary Noem included.”
Visibly upset, Edwards pushed back hard on FEMA’s statement, calling it “tone deaf” and disrespectful to the 138 flood victims and their grieving families.
“I can't let go of that statement from the FEMA press secretary that spoke about 'loving families deserving time off,' and zero mention of the loving families who are still grieving the losses of their family and friends who have been lost in these devastating floods,” Edwards said.
“It's completely tone deaf and does not meet the moment that is required when we're following such a tragic disaster. It's completely ridiculous for a FEMA administrator -- or any senior official at FEMA -- to be unreachable for that long. If I was unreachable for more than a few hours, I might get chewed out by the FEMA administrator at the time.”
Furthermore, Edwards noted that the FEMA administrator under the Biden administration, Deanne Criswell, “was always able to be accessed wherever she was,” and that Richardson’s absence “speaks to his lack of ability and qualifications to do this job.”