『The Bureaucracies of Natural Disasters』のカバーアート

The Bureaucracies of Natural Disasters

The Bureaucracies of Natural Disasters

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The interview aired today on Cheryl K. Chumley’s Bold & Blunt podcast from The Washington Times.Transcript: Cheryl ChumleyMy guest today, David Richardson, is the former acting head of FEMA. He oversaw FEMA as the acting head during the 2025 Texas floods, and he has lots of insider information on why it takes so long to get FEMA money into the hands of those who need it most. David Richardson, I want to thank you so much for being on Bold and Blunt. So great to have you here.David RichardsonWell, Cheryl, thank you for having me. I greatly appreciate this.CherylThis is going to be a very interesting discussion because we’re going to talk about the bureaucracies of government responding to natural disasters, but you have an insider look because you were the former acting head of FEMA during the 2025 Texas floods. Start a little bit from the very beginning. What happened when this flooding first started occurring?DavidThe flooding, which is not necessarily anything unusual, was caused by a stalled-out storm in the hills of Texas. We got first word of this about noon on the 4th of July. By that time the flood had already essentially occurred, and most of the deaths had already happened, because it started sometime about four in the morning.What we immediately began to do is coordinate search and rescue. I was in contact with Nim Kidd, who was the emergency manager in Texas. I was also in contact with Sean Plankey, who was overseeing the Coast Guard at the time. Most of the immediate support came from within Texas — FEMA teams in Texas, Texas National Guard, Nim Kidd’s teams, and the Coast Guard. Last time I talked to them I think it was like 235 survivors were rescued, some out of trees.After the first day it was a search-and-rescue operation. Unfortunately for the people in Texas, primarily a search operation for the bodies. We reacted immediately on the 4th of July, then began to coordinate moving search and rescue into Texas over the next few days. I was in very close contact with Nim Kidd. There were bureaucratic obstacles we had to overcome, and we overcame them successfully to make sure the people of Texas got what they wanted when they asked for it.CherylWhat are some of those bureaucratic obstacles? Response then versus New Orleans during that hurricane was very different. What are some of the obstacles people might not be aware of?DavidWhen it comes to search and rescue, you don’t want to turn it into a pile-on sport. There’s only so many teams you can fit into the scheme of maneuver as they work down the river. Nim Kidd and the State of Texas had a plan. He wanted the teams phased in according to his plan. He needed search-and-rescue teams from Colorado and Missouri on the move by Monday morning so they could get to Texas.DavidSo I gave them a chance to relieve us of the burden of the hundred-K memo, and when they never did, I simply released the search and rescue, and we paid them as we normally would have without the hundred-K memo in place.CherylWhat is the memo? What did it state?DavidThe hundred-K memo stated that the secretary herself would sign off on all contracts over a hundred thousand dollars.We knew search and rescue and whatever else Texas needed was going to be in the millions. The operations officer at FEMA had walked me through a day in the life of a disaster — a day in the life of a hurricane — the decision points, then the graph of the money spent. An average level-three hurricane, we were spending five hundred million dollars a day. I’d done the math on a piece of paper. Nobody could sign all those contracts.CherylHow long does it take to unfreeze funding? California wildfires have fallen off the radar, but a lot of angry people didn’t get the promised funds. Is it fraud? Is it bureaucracy? What takes place behind the scenes?DavidFEMA is DHS’s pot of gold. It’s the fattest calf in DHS to be sold, slaughtered, and consumed. There’s a lot of money to be had, and with that lot of money goes a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork.There are hordes of FEMA personnel in the field, living on per diem in hotels. They report to a center each day, go downrange, and count every fence, driveway, shed, house — anything that’s had damage — and they evaluate it. Those evaluations are open to appeals, and they’re often slow. It’s not uncommon that if FEMA evaluates something at a certain cost, the state or county has hired a former FEMA employee to appeal that. Appeals go on sometimes for years. A lot of bureaucratic wrangling inside FEMA and the states, arguing and grabbing for that money.CherylIs there a better way to administer emergency funds so the people most impacted get the money quicker?DavidThere is. First: Texas got what they wanted when they needed it, and I detail that in my book, Texas Flood 2025.Instead of evaluating every fence and driveway as a bottom-up count that can be appealed — lawyers, paperwork, years — we could use block grants.[...
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