They called me the Pope of FEMA.
Essays on federal disaster policy, flood maps, and the National Flood Insurance Program. The Pope of FEMA is the desk David Richardson opened after he left the agency: what the record shows, and what Washington still funds.
David Richardson is a Marine veteran, a painter, and the author of Texas Flood 4 July 2025 and the novel War Story. He served as the senior official performing the duties of Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency from May to November 2025, after a short term as Assistant Secretary for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction at the Department of Homeland Security. He had been sent to FEMA to carry the agency through hurricane season, then shrink it or shut it down. The Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in 45 minutes on the morning of 4 July 2025 before that work was done.
A retired lieutenant colonel, Richardson spent twenty-two years as a Marine combat arms officer in Japan, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa, and taught the origins of western warfare at The George Washington University. In 2007 he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with “V” device for his service as an adviser to an Iraqi battalion in Anbar Province. He studied biology and art at Harding and lives and works in Virginia. His paintings, in oil, acrylic, metal, charcoal, and mixed media, have been shown in New York and Washington.
Texas Flood 4 July 2025 is his firsthand account of that night and what followed: the stalled storm, the camps and towns in the floodplain, and the argument that the deeper cause was building where the water always comes. War Story (Permuted Press, 2019) draws on his years as a Marine adviser in Anbar. His essays have appeared in the Washington Examiner, Townhall, and The Daily Signal.
Site and books
Official site: derichardson.com
Texas Flood on Amazon | War Story on Amazon
Mail: book@popeoffema.com
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