Scott Perry Questions Acting FEMA Dir. David Richardson About Texas Floods Response

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During a House Transportation Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Scott Perry (R-FL) asked Acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson about his agency's response to deadly floods in Texas.

Transcript

00:00Chair, thanks the gentleman for his testimony. We will now turn to questions. The chair recognizes

00:05himself for five minutes of questioning. Mr. Richardson, last week members received a briefing

00:12from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, and the Army Corps of Engineers

00:18on the ongoing response to Texas, to the Texas floods. And I know we're still

00:22in the response mode with over 130 fatalities and 100 people still missing tragically.

00:28However, we do not know when the next disaster is going to happen. And so I know that we're

00:35looking for after action reports, but I think I need to turn to some of the questioning or at least

00:40a testimony today because it countervails what we heard yesterday or last week directly from FEMA,

00:47from Mr. Turi, when I asked him particularly about response times to the call center. Now,

00:54we understand from Mr. Turi that when there is a disaster occurring, that disaster is the one that

01:01receives precedent. So you might be getting calls into the call center from across the country,

01:06but the ones outside the disaster response area are put kind of behind the ones that are priority,

01:12which is the disaster that's occurring now. And in that case, wait times were significantly reduced

01:20based on what we're hearing from the ranking member here. And look, we just want to have

01:25the correct information. We don't want to say that anybody is distorting the truth,

01:28but we've got to make decisions on the correct information. So the information we got from Mr.

01:33Turi countervails what we're hearing right here in the committee today. And so I'm hoping you can

01:38elucidate us as to what you know about the call center response time. We also know that people

01:44from around the country that call and don't receive an immediate pickup from the call center hang up,

01:51but those are still counted as calls into the response center and they're aggregated into the

01:57response time. So can you, as well, we also heard that FEMA did not receive a request from the state

02:06until Monday. So there was no request prior to Monday for FEMA to get involved in the disaster

02:12response recovery effort. And so I'd like you to elucidate, if you could, any of that information

02:17that we received from Mr. Turi last week. So thank you for your question, Chairman Perry.

02:24First to the call center. So anytime that there is a disaster, we surge support to the call center

02:32to address those calls. And that's what we did. And so the disaster happened on Friday,

02:40and then there was Saturday and Sunday. And for most people, they don't call into the call center

02:45over the weekend. They would call in on Monday. And indeed, we had the surge support available all

02:53weekend. And when they came in on Monday, of course, there was a surge. Now, as Mr. Turi very likely told

02:58you, all calls were answered within three minutes and no call or in three minutes and no calls beyond

03:0910 minutes. So it's from three to 10 minutes. And the and the vast majority of phone calls were answered

03:17and the questions were addressed. Now regarding the I think the next part of the question is the support

03:23on the ground in Texas on was it, you said six, you said Monday, correct? Well, that's what we

03:30understand from Mr. Turi is when FEMA received the request from the state of Texas. FEMA doesn't

03:36just doesn't go on unrequested, you know, as the federal government, we the requirement is to wait

03:42for the state to request and then be prepared to respond. So Texas, first of all, on the deck in Texas,

03:50on the 4th of July, there was a national urban search and request team. We have 28 of those teams

03:58all over the country. One of them one of them is in Texas. So in College Station, Texas, that FEMA funded,

04:05FEMA trained and FEMA equipped asset was already on the deck on 4 July. And there was also a federal

04:12coordinating officer at the EOC Emergency Operations Center in Austin. And there was and regarding the

04:22request on Monday, that is correct. So the disaster declaration didn't come in until

04:27Sunday. And then Monday, they requested and the support was there within 24 hours, within 24 hours.

04:34Is there a is there a standard by which is set for FEMA on the response time is 24 hours? It seems,

04:44from my standpoint, that seems like a long time to wait when so just tell me if there's a standard,

04:49you know, when we had a medevac call in Iraq, as the commander of the task force, if the aircraft

04:57wasn't airborne within eight minutes of the call, it was a call directly to the Secretary of Defense. What is

05:02the response time, if you know, required for FEMA on such a response? Thank you for the question.

05:09Once again, they get there as quickly as possible. Those two teams came from, I believe it was

05:15Tennessee, it was Missouri and Colorado, and they get there as soon as they possible because they've

05:20got to move. I understand. But so my time, my time is expired. But is there a minimum response time?

05:26I'm just asking for purposes of trying to make things better. So does FEMA have a minimum response

05:32time once the request is made to respond, like within an hour or within 24 hours?

05:37Well, they respond immediately. And as soon as they get the word, they move.

05:42So they respond immediately. But there's no requirement that you know of? There's no requirement?

05:47They get there as fast as possible. I don't know if there's an hour number,

05:50but they get there as fast as possible. If you could get back to the committee with

05:53that information, that would be helpful. With that, my time is expired. I will.

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