FEMA failed to staff disaster hotline after Texas floods

The call center staffing meltdown appears to have happened because of an administrative bottleneck created by the Trump administration. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem personally signs off on all funding requests for more than $100,000, according to House testimony by FEMA acting administrator David Richardson earlier this month. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Under previous administrations, the FEMA administrator was able to personally sign off on large expenditures, according to Deanne Criswell, who led the agency under the Biden administration.

The FEMA call center staffing agreements with private vendors cost millions of dollars each month. Usually, FEMA renews such funding before it lapses, Criswell says.

“There should have been some kind of request long before they expired,” she says.

But the money did not arrive for another five days, contract records and call logs show. Over that period, a surge of flood survivors called the agency looking for help with temporary housing, money for basic food and clothing, and other time-sensitive assistance.

In comparison, after Hurricane Helene caused widespread devastation in the Southeast last year, FEMA call centers answered about 50% to 70% of calls from survivors, according to call center logs released by the agency.

Michael Coen, who served as FEMA chief of staff during the Obama and Biden administrations, said he couldn’t recall ever seeing such a lapse in funding in his time at the agency.

“That’s the last thing you want to do in the middle of response,” Coen says.

Late that same day, on July 10, the funding was approved for all the vendors, and call centers were staffed adequately once again, according to contract reports and call center logs.

“The fact that he took five days is shocking,” Criswell says.

At least one Texas official expressed frustration with FEMA’s call center performance and blamed cuts to the agency. In a post on the social media site X, Lesley Briones, a county commissioner in Harris County, Texas, wrote, “The vital agency is understaffed and under-resourced, creating a dangerous situation for communities vulnerable to disasters.”

Internal FEMA documents contradict testimony about how many calls were answered

During testimony before a House subcommittee on July 23, Richardson was asked about the agency’s staffing of call centers.

Rep. Laura Friedman, D-Calif., asked the FEMA leader about the report in The New York Times that showed FEMA call centers had been inadequately staffed in the week after the Texas floods.

“Isn’t it accurate that 80% … of the calls that went to FEMA call centers on July 7th went unanswered?” Friedman asked Richardson.

“When the tragedy struck, we knew there would be,” Richardson began, before being interrupted by Rep. Friedman.

“[It’s] a yes or no question,” Friedman said. “They either answered the calls or they didn’t answer the calls on July 7th.”

“When there was a spike in calls, FEMA was there to answer the calls,” Richardson said. “The majority of the calls were answered at the call centers.”

Richardson went on to say, twice, that “there was never a lapse in contract.”

Richardson was “splitting hairs,” says Christopher Byrne, who worked as a senior contracting officer at the U.S. General Services Administration, which handles procurement across the federal government, for about 30 years before he retired last summer.

The umbrella contract with the vendors did not lapse, Byrne points out. But the funding did. Without the funding, the FEMA call centers stopped working just as survivors began emerging from the Texas floods.

“Why weren’t they working between the 6th and the 9th? Because I can’t tell you to work without money,” Byrne says.

The call center funding is set to lapse again on Aug. 8

FEMA has the option to renew funding for call center staff every 30 days, contract records show. The current funding expires on Friday, Aug. 8. As of Aug. 6, it did not appear that DHS had approved any more money, according to the public federal procurement database.

The reason that the funding expires every 30 days is that the number of calls the agency receives from Americans seeking help after disasters fluctuates throughout the year. During times of year when there are fewer weather disasters, the agency receives fewer calls and can choose to spend less money staffing call centers.

But the 30-day clock creates a lot of work for FEMA staff, Byrne says.