Discrepancies between federal records and assertions made by the head of FEMA about the Texas flood response as presented to Congress.
In the aftermath of the devastating Texas floods in 2025, a critical funding lapse in FEMA's call centers left thousands of survivors struggling to get through for urgent assistance.
During his testimony before a House subcommittee on July 23, Acting Administrator of FEMA David Richardson was questioned about the agency's staffing of call centers post-flood. However, the Department of Homeland Security failed to respond to questions regarding why funding for FEMA call centers lapsed, resulting in unanswered calls from survivors.
The reason for the funding's expiration every 30 days is due to the fluctuating number of calls the agency receives from Americans seeking help after disasters throughout the year. The funding for FEMA call center staffing, which costs millions of dollars each month, is set to lapse again on Aug. 8, with no signs of DHS approval for additional funds as of Aug. 6.
One Texas official expressed frustration with FEMA's call center performance, blaming cuts to the agency. On July 7, the first weekday after the deadly July 4 disaster, there was a surge in the number of callers to the FEMA assistance hotline for disaster survivors. However, internal call center logs obtained by a website show that only 10% of the over 15,000 calls that FEMA received that day were answered.
Rep. Laura Friedman, D-Calif., asked Richardson about a report in The New York Times that showed FEMA call centers were inadequately staffed in the week after the Texas floods. Christopher Byrne, a former senior contracting officer at the U.S. General Services Administration, points out that the funding for the FEMA call centers stopped working just as survivors began emerging from the floods, despite Richardson's statements that there was never a lapse in contract.
Byrne reviewed publicly available orders related to FEMA call center contracts for the website and states that FEMA is understaffed, having a crazy workload. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem personally signs off on all funding requests for more than $100,000, according to FEMA acting administrator David Richardson's House testimony.
The lapse in funding for FEMA call centers during the Texas floods critically hampered the agency's ability to respond to survivors' calls, leaving nearly 40,000 calls unanswered over five days when people urgently sought shelter, food, and aid. This funding gap occurred due to an administrative bottleneck created by a Department of Homeland Security policy requiring personal approval from Secretary Noem for expenditures over $100,000.
On July 10, five days after the call center funding lapsed, FEMA's acting administrator, David Richardson, sent a memo to Secretary Noem asking her to approve funding for at least one call center vendor. Yet, Richardson's testimony appears to be contradicted by a July 10 memo obtained by the website showing he requested that DHS Secretary Noem approve call center funding, which acknowledges that most calls were not being answered at that time.
This funding lapse and staffing shortfall significantly undermined FEMA's operational effectiveness and delayed critical disaster response actions such as search-and-rescue deployments—issues that have been described by senators as foreseeable outcomes of the rigid approval process.
Sources: 1. [Website] 2. [Website] 3. [Website] 4. Stephen Fowler and Lauren Sommer (contributors)
- The funding lapse in FEMA's call centers left thousands of Texas flood survivors struggling to get through for urgent assistance, amidst criticism about the agency's staffing levels post-flood.
- Acting Administrator of FEMA, David Richardson, was questioned about the call center staffing issue, but no response was given regarding why the funding lapsed.
- The funding for FEMA call centers expires every 30 days due to the fluctuating number of calls the agency receives, with millions of dollars being spent each month.
- On July 7, after the deadly July 4 disaster, there was a surge in callers to the FEMA assistance hotline for disaster survivors, yet only 10% of the over 15,000 calls received that day were answered.
- Rep. Laura Friedman, D-Calif., questioned Richardson about a report in The New York Times showing that FEMA call centers were inadequately staffed in the week after the Texas floods.
- Christopher Byrne, a former US General Services Administration official, stated that the funding for the FEMA call centers stopped working just as survivors began emerging from the floods.
- Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem personally signs off on all funding requests for more than $100,000, according to Richardson's House testimony, suggesting that the lapse in funding was due to this administrative bottleneck.
- The funding gap during the Texas floods critically hampered FEMA's response to calls from survivors, delaying crucial disaster response actions like search-and-rescue deployments, an issue foreseen as a result of the rigorous approval process.
