FEMA search and rescue teams take days to reach Texas after flooding as agency faces overhaul
Three of the teams, which are typically tasked with helping local first responders to urgently find survivors, were dispatched on Tuesday, more than four days after the Guadalupe River surge that has left more than 120 dead and scores missing. No victims have been found alive since last Friday, July 4.
Teams from Indiana, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Nevada left their states with crews which included searchers, dogs, boats and equipment to drive across the country in a race against time to reach Texas. They were among a number of search and rescue teams from around the US coalescing in the state.
Driving some 20 hours, the team from Nevada arrived on Wednesday and began setting up camp on Thursday, an official for the team told CNN. The teams, which are involved in large area searches, water rescues and finding human remains, began their first day of field work July 11, a week after the flood, the spokesperson said.
A complex network of federal, state and local emergency personnel, including search and rescue workers from inside and outside Texas, raced to help in the immediate aftermath of the deadly flood.
But CNN has previously reported that the decision to authorize deployments from a federal network of Urban Search and Rescue teams more than 72 hours after the calamity frustrated FEMA officials.
In the past, the agency would have quickly staged these teams near disaster zones in anticipation of urgent requests for assistance, they said.
While disaster responses vary depending on a variety of factors, including the emergency response resources a state has at their own disposal, during previous flash floods FEMA had mobilized search and rescue teams within hours, not days, of the storm.
Multiple officials also said that a new rule requiring Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to sign off on relatively small expenditures from her agency, which oversees FEMA, created bureaucratic hurdles during a critical time.
That meant the response was unusual and slowed down the agency at a time when quick action was most needed, officials inside FEMA told CNN.
While DHS tapped other assets at its disposal from within the federal government, FEMA had deployed only 86 of its own people by Monday, surging to 311 by Tuesday.
Spokespeople for two of the search and rescue teams activated by FEMA last week said it was not out of the ordinary to be deployed a few days after a storm, but Democratic lawmakers have raised questions over the larger response from Noem and her agency.
A spokesperson for DHS said: 'Secretary Noem is leading a historic, first-of-its-kind approach to disaster funding: putting states first by providing upfront recovery support — moving money faster than ever and jump-starting recovery.'
Noem has defended her handling of the disaster, and the response by FEMA appears consistent with the Trump administration's view for how emergencies should be handled under their vision of a restructured FEMA: States take the lead in the response, and the federal government provides support when necessary.
'This is a breakthrough in how FEMA supports state-led disaster recovery,' the DHS spokesperson said in the statement.
Five of the teams that deployed to Texas were Indiana Task Force 1; Arizona Task Force 1; Colorado Task Force 1; Nevada Task Force 1; and Missouri Task Force 1. The teams are part of the National Urban Search & Rescue Response System, a collection of 28 task forces across the country that FEMA calls upon that are equipped and able to respond within six hours.
Each team has personnel specifically trained in water rescue who 'work alongside local rescuers to help reach and recover survivors' during flooding events, according to FEMA's description of the teams.
A spokesperson for the Nevada team said it left for Texas on Tuesday, after getting the go-ahead from FEMA that same day. A spokesperson for the Missouri team said it was activated by FEMA on Monday and left that same night, arriving in Texas on Tuesday. The Colorado team left on Monday, shortly after being notified by FEMA. The Arizona team left for Texas on Tuesday, about 4.5 hours after being notified by FEMA. The Indiana team left that state on Tuesday, but a spokesperson could not immediately answer when the team received the FEMA notice.
A team from Ohio was activated by FEMA later in the week, according to local media reports, and other crews were activated through a separate state-led mechanism that works with FEMA to deploy its network, CNN has reported.
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Flash flooding events like the one that ravaged Texas this month are notoriously unpredictable, making it difficult to stage crews in advance of a disaster.
Earlier this year, after a flash flood swept through parts of Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia, weeks into President Donald Trump's second term — and months before Noem instituted her expenditure sign-off rule — urban search and rescue teams were deployed by FEMA 'within 12 hours of the initial weather impacts' to help with evacuations, the agency said in a press release at the time.
In 2023, FEMA deployed a New York Urban Search and Rescue team to Vermont within a day of major flooding caused by the cresting of the Winooski River inundating downtown Montpelier.
Asked about the discrepancies in FEMA search and rescue response time between the Texas flood and the flood earlier this year, a spokesperson for DHS told CNN: 'This is absolute hogwash. Within moments of the flooding in Texas, DHS assets, including the U.S. Coast Guard, tactical Border Patrol units and FEMA personnel surged into unprecedented action alongside Texas first responders. The U.S. Coast Guard alone rescued over 230 Americans. The response of federal first responders alongside local search & rescue was instantaneous.'
In the days before FEMA authorized its search and rescue deployments, state and local crews were hard at work. Texas activated some resources, including rescue boat teams, on July 2, two days before the major flooding. The state has an emergency-management division that is well equipped and has long experience responding to disasters and also saw aid from other states.
Within Texas, more than 75 local departments joined disaster aid efforts in the days after the storm, a state official said.
Other aspects of the federal government, including the Coast Guard, also responded within those crucial first hours. One Coast Guard swimmer has been credited with rescuing approximately 165 people after deploying early Friday morning.
The FEMA delay has underscored concern from some state and local leaders about what could happen when disaster strikes a less-equipped state, or across multiple states.
On Thursday, Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, who previously led that state's emergency management division, called for Congress to investigate FEMA's response.
'In a crisis like this, FEMA's responsibility is clear: move swiftly, anticipate needs, pre-position resources, and launch rescue efforts without delay,' the Democrat wrote in a letter to the House Homeland Security and Transportation committees. 'That did not happen here.'
Two Texas lawmakers, both Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, were also among those demanding answers.
'While many facts are still unclear in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, we are concerned about its implications for FEMA's ability to respond to emergencies and natural disasters in the future and to effectively carry out its search and rescue functions, as well as subsequent recovery efforts,' Reps. Jasmine Crockett and Greg Casar wrote.
Democratic North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein said his state, like Texas, has a robust emergency response team.
'But here's the thing: We don't get a huge storm every year,' Stein said on CNBC on Thursday, referring to his state. 'The country does.'
'It doesn't make sense for each state to have a fully staffed emergency response team because they may not have a storm for five years or 10 years, but we know the country will,' Stein added.
While Trump and Noem have both expressed their wish to see the federal government's emergency-response agency either 'go away' or be 'eliminated,' that tone has shifted with the growing scrutiny over how the administration deployed FEMA to respond to this latest tragedy.
Touring flood-stricken Central Texas on Friday, Trump praised the response from FEMA.
'We have some good people running FEMA,' the president said. 'It's about time, right?'
On Friday, one week after the disaster struck, FEMA activated Virginia Task Force 1, from Fairfax County, Va., according to its spokesperson. They asked for a single resource from the group: dogs for recovering bodies.
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