Overview

• Ken Pagurek stepped down on July 21 after citing frustration with a more than 72-hour delay in deploying Urban Search and Rescue teams to Central Texas floods.
• Sources say a new DHS rule requiring Secretary Kristi Noem to personally approve all FEMA expenditures over $100,000 created costly bottlenecks in disaster relief.
• At a July 23 House hearing, acting FEMA administrator David Richardson defended the flood response as a model despite criticism of his absence from the National Response Coordination Center and late public statements.
• Congressional committees are probing the agency’s delayed response and considering bipartisan measures to restore FEMA’s autonomy and disaster-response capacity.
• Departures of veteran leaders have eroded morale and institutional knowledge, compounding operational strains despite renewed call-center contracts.