FEMA's Texas Flood Response Under Scrutiny: Unanswered Calls and Contract Lapses

FEMA's Role and Charitable Donations

• 💡 Representative Friedman highlights FEMA's current policy of deducting individual charitable donations from disaster assistance.
• 📌 She introduced the "Don't Penalize Victims Act" to prevent charitable donations from being considered a duplication of benefits.
• 🤝 Acting FEMA Administrator Richardson expressed willingness to work with Representative Friedman on this issue, emphasizing a desire to remove politics from emergency management.

FEMA's Texas Flood Response: Call Center Performance

• ⚠️ A report from The New York Times indicated that on July 7th, FEMA call centers responded to less than 20% of calls from disaster victims.
• 💔 This means over four out of five calls went unanswered during the horrific flooding in Texas.
• 🗣️ Secretary Gnome claimed the New York Times report was "fake news."

Contract Issues and Data Discrepancies

• 📊 Official documents reportedly show that on July 5th, FEMA received 3,207 calls and answered 3,000 (over 99%).
• 📉 However, on July 6th, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered only 846 (35.8%).
• 📈 On July 7th, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered just 2,613 (15.9%).
• 🚫 FEMA officials were reportedly frustrated by a lapse in contracts with four call center companies, leading to hundreds of contractors being fired.
• ❓ Representative Friedman questioned whether these numbers were fake and if Secretary Gnome misspoken.
• 💬 Administrator Richardson maintained that the vast majority of calls were answered and there was never a lapse in contracts, disagreeing with the "fake news" label for the report.