FEMA Chief Responds to Criticisms, Calls Texas Flood Response ‘Model’ for Future Disasters

FEMA’s acting head spoke before a House panel two days after the agency’s urban search and rescue leader resigned.

A sign for the Federal Emergency Management Agency is pictured at FEMA headquarters in Washington on April 20, 2020. Al Drago/The New York Times via AP, Pool

Responding to recent criticisms, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) acting Administrator David Richardson said the federal response to the catastrophic Texas floods earlier this month was exemplary.

“I can’t see anything that we did wrong,” Richardson told a House panel of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on July 23, calling the relationship between state and federal agencies “a model for how disasters should be handled.”