FEMA chief rejects criticism, calls Texas floods response ‘a model’ for dealing with disaster
The acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is pushing back on criticisms of the 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 Transportation 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 “brought 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 ..