The interview aired today on Cheryl K. Chumley’s Bold & Blunt podcast from The Washington Times.
Transcript:
Cheryl Chumley
My guest today, David Richardson, is the former acting head of FEMA. He oversaw FEMA as the acting head during the 2025 Texas floods, and he has lots of insider information on why it takes so long to get FEMA money into the hands of those who need it most. David Richardson, I want to thank you so much for being on Bold and Blunt. So great to have you here.
David Richardson
Well, Cheryl, thank you for having me. I greatly appreciate this.
Cheryl
This is going to be a very interesting discussion because we’re going to talk about the bureaucracies of government responding to natural disasters, but you have an insider look because you were the former acting head of FEMA during the 2025 Texas floods. Start a little bit from the very beginning. What happened when this flooding first started occurring?
David
The flooding, which is not necessarily anything unusual, was caused by a stalled-out storm in the hills of Texas. We got first word of this about noon on the 4th of July. By that time the flood had already essentially occurred, and most of the deaths had already happened, because it started sometime about four in the morning.
What we immediately began to do is coordinate search and rescue. I was in contact with Nim Kidd, who was the emergency manager in Texas. I was also in contact with Sean Plankey, who was overseeing the Coast Guard at the time. Most of the immediate support came from within Texas — FEMA teams in Texas, Texas National Guard, Nim Kidd’s teams, and the Coast Guard. Last time I talked to them I think it was like 235 survivors were rescued, some out of trees.
After the first day it was a search-and-rescue operation. Unfortunately for the people in Texas, primarily a search operation for the bodies. We reacted immediately on the 4th of July, then began to coordinate moving search and rescue into Texas over the next few days. I was in very close contact with Nim Kidd. There were bureaucratic obstacles we had to overcome, and we overcame them successfully to make sure the people of Texas got what they wanted when they asked for it.
Cheryl
What are some of those bureaucratic obstacles? Response then versus New Orleans during that hurricane was very different. What are some of the obstacles people might not be aware of?
David
When it comes to search and rescue, you don’t want to turn it into a pile-on sport. There’s only so many teams you can fit into the scheme of maneuver as they work down the river. Nim Kidd and the State of Texas had a plan. He wanted the teams phased in according to his plan. He needed search-and-rescue teams from Colorado and Missouri on the move by Monday morning so they could get to Texas.
David
So I gave them a chance to relieve us of the burden of the hundred-K memo, and when they never did, I simply released the search and rescue, and we paid them as we normally would have without the hundred-K memo in place.
Cheryl
What is the memo? What did it state?
David
The hundred-K memo stated that the secretary herself would sign off on all contracts over a hundred thousand dollars.
We knew search and rescue and whatever else Texas needed was going to be in the millions. The operations officer at FEMA had walked me through a day in the life of a disaster — a day in the life of a hurricane — the decision points, then the graph of the money spent. An average level-three hurricane, we were spending five hundred million dollars a day. I’d done the math on a piece of paper. Nobody could sign all those contracts.
Cheryl
How long does it take to unfreeze funding? California wildfires have fallen off the radar, but a lot of angry people didn’t get the promised funds. Is it fraud? Is it bureaucracy? What takes place behind the scenes?
David
FEMA is DHS’s pot of gold. It’s the fattest calf in DHS to be sold, slaughtered, and consumed. There’s a lot of money to be had, and with that lot of money goes a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork.
There are hordes of FEMA personnel in the field, living on per diem in hotels. They report to a center each day, go downrange, and count every fence, driveway, shed, house — anything that’s had damage — and they evaluate it. Those evaluations are open to appeals, and they’re often slow. It’s not uncommon that if FEMA evaluates something at a certain cost, the state or county has hired a former FEMA employee to appeal that. Appeals go on sometimes for years. A lot of bureaucratic wrangling inside FEMA and the states, arguing and grabbing for that money.
Cheryl
Is there a better way to administer emergency funds so the people most impacted get the money quicker?
David
There is. First: Texas got what they wanted when they needed it, and I detail that in my book, Texas Flood 2025.
Instead of evaluating every fence and driveway as a bottom-up count that can be appealed — lawyers, paperwork, years — we could use block grants.
[Thinner stretch: block grants and aerial photos; then his uncle’s 2012 Arkansas individual-assistance case.]
In 2012 his house was built inside the levee in Arkansas. He got some FEMA money. I paid for a third of the house to be rebuilt. He was flabbergasted at the amount of work it took just to get individual assistance.
The corollary to the block grants — I had a plan to do this before I left FEMA — they could make an app. I spoke to Steve Davis, Elon Musk’s right-hand man, about a streamlined way for Americans to apply for individual assistance. There are ways to reduce it. There’s no push to get it done.
Cheryl
Your book is Texas Flood. I imagine you wrote it in part from the frustration, and to give people a better way forward.
David
The book is titled Texas Flood 2025, because if you search Amazon there are other Texas floods. David Richardson, Texas Flood 2025. Shameless plug.
I wrote it for the children of Camp Mystic and the other people who died, because I had to get to the bottom of the why.
The immediate cause was a stalled storm in the hills of Texas. It had nothing to do with climate change, regardless of what institutes, PhDs, and everybody else will tell you. The storm moved in and couldn’t get over the hills.
[Thinner stretch: immediate / proximate / deep cause.]
Building in the floodplain is the deep cause of the tragedy in Texas. It’s fostered partly by NFIP and flood maps.
FEMA will tell you flood maps are for actuarial purposes and they are not predictive. That’s true. They inform the National Flood Insurance Program. What they won’t tell you is they have nothing to do with safety and precaution. Immediate cause, proximate cause, deep cause. There is no one cause, and that one cause is definitely not climate change.
Cheryl
From local zoning coverage: environmentalists expanding flood maps and floodplains as a way of halting development. Response?
David
The flood maps are a weapon. You can use them to keep people from building in the floodplain. You can also appeal to FEMA to alter them so you can put more buildings in the floodplain, or cut the already-low premiums. That’s what happened at Camp Mystic.
Between 2011 and 2020, Camp Mystic and associated personnel appealed to FEMA to change the lines so they could either build more or reduce premiums on the ones already in the floodplain. FEMA works with locals. Could be the environmentalist. Could be people who want to expand into the floodplain. The levels just get deeper.
Cheryl
If you yourself were hit by a flood, would you wait on FEMA, or take other measures?
David
I would move on. FEMA doesn’t respond immediately. That’s mostly the state. FEMA is the wagon train that comes in and burrows in at the state and local level so they can collect per diem and sift through the bureaucratic mess. I would take matters into my own hands and stay free from anything FEMA had to offer. I witnessed that with my uncle. I footed a third of the bill. We built nothing more than a shack on a small hill that passed state and federal housing inspection.
Cheryl
That’s a hard truth to stomach, given the tax dollars. David Richardson, your book is Texas Flood 2025. I hope people read it.
David
Thank you, Cheryl. I appreciate it.
