Latest news with #FederalEmergencyManagementAgency
Hamilton Spectator
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Hamilton Spectator
FEMA chief rejects criticism, calls Texas floods response ‘a model' for dealing with disaster
The acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is pushing back on criticisms of the federal response to the central Texas floods that killed at least 136 people earlier this month. 'I can't see anything we did wrong,' David Richardson told a House panel of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on Wednesday. He called the relationship between state and federal agencies 'a model for how disasters should be handled.' Lawmakers used the hearing about improvements to FEMA disaster response to address reports that FEMA support was impaired by bureaucratic delays that slowed the deployment of urban search and rescue teams and left the agency's call centers unstaffed, which Richardson denied. The response 'brought the maximum amount of capability to bear in Texas at the right time and the right place,' he said. Richardson's appearance came after a wave of criticism and fallout over the response, including the resignation Monday of FEMA's urban search and rescue leader. President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have touted the robust federal support for Texas despite their past support for eliminating FEMA . Reports of delays on the ground denied The acting administrator denied reports that FEMA urban search-and-rescue teams were delayed over 72 hours because of a new rule imposed by Noem that she must personally approve any contract of $100,000 or more. Richardson said a Texas-based FEMA task force was on the ground on July 4, along with other Homeland Security assets like the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection, and that additional support came within '24 hours' of being requested. Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., pushed back on FEMA's readiness, asking why more of the 28 FEMA urban search-and-rescue teams located around the country were not on standby ahead of receiving a request from the state of Texas. 'It haunts me that we could have had more urban search and rescue pre-positioned in place,' said Stanton. 'That was a choice.' The leader of FEMA's urban search-and-rescue effort, Ken Pagurek, expressed frustration with the delays to colleagues before resigning Monday, according to CNN. In response to Pagurek's resignation, a DHS spokesperson told The Associated Press, 'It is laughable that a career public employee, who claims to serve the American people, would choose to resign over our refusal to hastily approve a six-figure deployment contract without basic financial oversight.' The Texas Division of Emergency Management did not respond to a request for comment on whether search-and-rescue efforts were impacted by delayed deployment of the FEMA teams. Richardson also denied a report from The New York Times that 84% of calls to FEMA went unanswered on July 7, three days after the July 4 floods, because Noem let lapse contract renewals with outside call centers. The contracts were renewed July 10, according to The Times. 'The vast majority of phone calls were answered. There was never a lapse in the contract,' said Richardson, echoing Noem's statements that the report was 'fake news.' Richardson defended his absence from the ground efforts in Texas, saying he worked from Washington, D.C., 'to kick down the doors of bureaucracy' and denying suggestions that Trump or Noem told him to stand down. He did not visit Texas until July 12. FEMA's fate is still in question Since the Texas floods, Trump has deflected questions about FEMA's fate. In June, he said he wanted to begin 'phasing out' FEMA after the hurricane season 'to wean off of FEMA and bring it to the state level.' Trump has been criticized for delaying decisions on disaster declaration requests , causing some states to wait as long as two months for approval to receive assistance to repair public infrastructure or help survivors. Lawmakers pressed Richardson on more general issues of FEMA reform as well, including concerns over long overdue preparedness grant funding, flood insurance and rules about how much financial assistance survivors can receive. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers asked about the fate of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which Trump canceled earlier this year. The grants supplied hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster mitigation funding. Twenty states are now suing the administration over the loss of funds. On Tuesday, Trump approved disaster declaration requests for Michigan, Oregon, Indiana, Kansas, West Virginia, Missouri and New Mexico and expanded assistance in Kentucky. Rep. Bob Onder, R-Mo., asked Richardson why it took a month for his state to get a disaster declaration. 'My constituents were frustrated by how long it takes to get temporary housing and debris removal assistance,' Onder said. Richardson referred back to Texas' declaration request: 'We turned that around within just a couple hours.' A Trump-appointed FEMA review council is in the process of crafting recommendations to the president on changes to the agency. Noem, who co-chairs the council, told its members five days after the Texas floods that FEMA 'needs to be eliminated as it exists today and remade as a responsive agency.' Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said he and Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., would introduce the bipartisan Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act this week, which would make FEMA an independent, Cabinet-level agency, incentivize states to prioritize resilience and improve aid for survivors. 'We don't need to wait for a FEMA review council,' said Larsen. 'We've been reviewing FEMA for a long time.' Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Winnipeg Free Press
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
FEMA chief rejects criticism, calls Texas floods response ‘a model' for dealing with disaster
The acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is pushing back on criticisms of the federal response to the central Texas floods that killed at least 136 people earlier this month. 'I can't see anything we did wrong,' David Richardson told a House panel of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on Wednesday. He called the relationship between state and federal agencies 'a model for how disasters should be handled.' Lawmakers used the hearing about improvements to FEMA disaster response to address reports that FEMA support was impaired by bureaucratic delays that slowed the deployment of urban search and rescue teams and left the agency's call centers unstaffed, which Richardson denied. The response 'brought the maximum amount of capability to bear in Texas at the right time and the right place,' he said. Richardson's appearance came after a wave of criticism and fallout over the response, including the resignation Monday of FEMA's urban search and rescue leader. President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have touted the robust federal support for Texas despite their past support for eliminating FEMA. Reports of delays on the ground denied The acting administrator denied reports that FEMA urban search-and-rescue teams were delayed over 72 hours because of a new rule imposed by Noem that she must personally approve any contract of $100,000 or more. Richardson said a Texas-based FEMA task force was on the ground on July 4, along with other Homeland Security assets like the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection, and that additional support came within '24 hours' of being requested. Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., pushed back on FEMA's readiness, asking why more of the 28 FEMA urban search-and-rescue teams located around the country were not on standby ahead of receiving a request from the state of Texas. 'It haunts me that we could have had more urban search and rescue pre-positioned in place,' said Stanton. 'That was a choice.' The leader of FEMA's urban search-and-rescue effort, Ken Pagurek, expressed frustration with the delays to colleagues before resigning Monday, according to CNN. In response to Pagurek's resignation, a DHS spokesperson told The Associated Press, 'It is laughable that a career public employee, who claims to serve the American people, would choose to resign over our refusal to hastily approve a six-figure deployment contract without basic financial oversight.' The Texas Division of Emergency Management did not respond to a request for comment on whether search-and-rescue efforts were impacted by delayed deployment of the FEMA teams. Richardson also denied a report from The New York Times that 84% of calls to FEMA went unanswered on July 7, three days after the July 4 floods, because Noem let lapse contract renewals with outside call centers. The contracts were renewed July 10, according to The Times. 'The vast majority of phone calls were answered. There was never a lapse in the contract,' said Richardson, echoing Noem's statements that the report was 'fake news.' Richardson defended his absence from the ground efforts in Texas, saying he worked from Washington, D.C., 'to kick down the doors of bureaucracy' and denying suggestions that Trump or Noem told him to stand down. He did not visit Texas until July 12. FEMA's fate is still in question Since the Texas floods, Trump has deflected questions about FEMA's fate. In June, he said he wanted to begin 'phasing out' FEMA after the hurricane season 'to wean off of FEMA and bring it to the state level.' Trump has been criticized for delaying decisions on disaster declaration requests, causing some states to wait as long as two months for approval to receive assistance to repair public infrastructure or help survivors. Lawmakers pressed Richardson on more general issues of FEMA reform as well, including concerns over long overdue preparedness grant funding, flood insurance and rules about how much financial assistance survivors can receive. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers asked about the fate of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which Trump canceled earlier this year. The grants supplied hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster mitigation funding. Twenty states are now suing the administration over the loss of funds. On Tuesday, Trump approved disaster declaration requests for Michigan, Oregon, Indiana, Kansas, West Virginia, Missouri and New Mexico and expanded assistance in Kentucky. Rep. Bob Onder, R-Mo., asked Richardson why it took a month for his state to get a disaster declaration. 'My constituents were frustrated by how long it takes to get temporary housing and debris removal assistance,' Onder said. Richardson referred back to Texas' declaration request: 'We turned that around within just a couple hours.' A Trump-appointed FEMA review council is in the process of crafting recommendations to the president on changes to the agency. Noem, who co-chairs the council, told its members five days after the Texas floods that FEMA 'needs to be eliminated as it exists today and remade as a responsive agency.' Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said he and Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., would introduce the bipartisan Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act this week, which would make FEMA an independent, Cabinet-level agency, incentivize states to prioritize resilience and improve aid for survivors. 'We don't need to wait for a FEMA review council,' said Larsen. 'We've been reviewing FEMA for a long time.'
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
The government stepped in to clean up a disaster in North Carolina. Then they created another one.
POLK COUNTY, North Carolina — The small section of forest before me looked as though it was clear-cut. The ground was flat and treeless, covered in a thin layer of jumbled sticks and leaves. This region, a wetland formed by beavers near the South Carolina border, was flooded last September by Hurricane Helene. But it wasn't the storm that razed the forest. It was the machines that came after. They were part of a hurricane cleanup effort, bankrolled by the federal government, that many environmental experts believe went very, very wrong. Helene hit North Carolina in late September last year, dumping historic amounts of rain that damaged thousands of homes, killed more than 100 people, and littered rivers with debris including fallen trees, building fragments, and cars. In the months since, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sponsored an enormous cleanup effort in western North Carolina. It focused, among other things, on clearing debris from waterways for public safety. Storm debris left in rivers and streams can create jams that make them more likely to flood in the future. In some parts of the state, however, cleanup crews contracted by the federal government removed much more than just dangerous debris. According to several state biologists, environmental experts, and my own observations from a recent trip to the area, contractors in some regions cleared live trees still rooted in the ground, logs that were in place well before the storm, and other natural features of the habitat that may not have posed a risk to public safety. These experts also told me that the Army Corps of Engineers — a government agency tasked by FEMA to oversee debris removal in several counties — failed to coordinate with the state wildlife agency to minimize harm to species that are in danger of extinction. Those include federally endangered freshwater mussels, which are essential for their role in keeping rivers clean, and hellbenders, iconic giant salamanders that the federal government says are imperiled. In some stretches of rivers and streams, the contractors ultimately did more harm to the environment than the storm itself, the experts said. The many scientists and environmental experts I spoke to say the main problem is the compensation system for companies involved in disaster recovery: Contractors are typically paid by the volume of debris they remove from streams, creating an incentive for them to take more debris than is necessary. 'They just removed everything.' Hans Lohmeyer, stewardship coordinator at Conserving Carolina That's what happened in this partially destroyed beaver wetland, according to Hans Lohmeyer, the stewardship coordinator with an environmental group called Conserving Carolina, who took me to the wetland in June. 'They just removed everything,' Lohmeyer told me, pointing at the bald patch of forest where he said live trees that had survived Helene once stood. 'It's more advantageous for them to remove it all because they're getting paid for it.' The damage from Helene was relatively minor here, Lohmeyer said. And he claims that debris churned up by the storm didn't pose a serious flood risk. The wetland is a large natural area with few homes or buildings and plenty of room for floodwaters, he said. Yet contractors still leveled parts of the forest with excavators, clearing important wildlife habitat. 'We've just seen tons of excessive debris removal,' said Jon Stamper, river cleanup coordinator with MountainTrue, a nonprofit that's being funded by the state to clean up debris in smaller waterways. 'I couldn't even begin to tell you how many reports and phone calls and public outcries we've had about this.' Plenty of contractors have done a good job, he said, but many seem to be 'simply grabbing anything they can to make more money.' Cleanup contractors have faced scrutiny before. In the months after deadly floods swept through southeastern Kentucky in 2022, a report by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting claimed that debris-removal contractors — including AshBritt and its subcontractors, one of the firms contracted by the Army Corps in North Carolina — took trees they shouldn't have and ignored complaints from residents, prompting lawsuits. (At least some of the claims against the company have since been dismissed, court records show.) Then there's the risk of climate change: Rising global temperatures are only likely to increase the need for debris removal, by making natural disasters like floods more frequent and severe in some areas. That will come at a steep cost to public safety and to the economy — Helene's costs have so far amounted to nearly $80 billion. And without better cleanup systems in place, it will be especially devastating for the wild animals that need intact ecosystems to survive. Scientists say government contractors were careless and likely killed scores of endangered species I initially traveled to North Carolina for a story about how damage from Hurricane Helene is pushing some already rare animals closer to extinction. For endangered salamanders like the Hickory Nut Gorge green — a striking amphibian with black skin and splotches of green — forest loss caused by Helene's floodwaters is a new and urgent threat. But as I spoke with experts for the story, they told me that a bigger problem for animals in some rivers and streams has actually been the cleanup after the storm. To clean up debris from Helene, counties in western North Carolina either enlisted help from the Army Corps of Engineers — which then hired contractors — or contracted debris removal companies themselves. In both cases, FEMA provided financial support. According to three state biologists and several other experts familiar with North Carolina's stream ecology, it was debris removal contractors working under the Army Corps that created the worst environmental problems. AshBritt, one of the Corps' big contractors, managed debris removal in Polk County, where I saw the partially deforested beaver wetland. I also visited a stream west of Hendersonville called Little River that was cleaned up by a different Army Corps contractor. Share a tip Do you have information about disaster cleanup in North Carolina? Reach out to or benjijones@ (encrypted). Find me on Signal at benji.90. In Little River, cleanup contractors severely damaged the stream ecosystem, which is home to the world's highest density of the endangered Appalachian elktoe mussel, said Luke Etchison, a biologist at the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC), the state wildlife agency. Giant excavators drove over the riverbed, almost certainly crushing elktoes and burying rocks used by hellbenders, the largest salamanders in North America, he said. The contractors also left parts of the bank bare and almost certainly removed natural habitat features that were not a flood hazard, according to Etchison. On a warm and sunny morning in June, Etchison and his colleague Michael Perkins, another state biologist, visited Little River for an informal survey. I tagged along. The river was shallow and calm with a rocky bottom and flanked by shrubs and trees. It looked like a pretty typical river — and it was beautiful. We threw on wetsuits, goggles, and snorkels and waded into the cold water. It was only when we swam around with our heads tilted to the riverbed that I started to see some of the impacts Etchison was describing: crushed elktoe shells, broken rocks, and hardly any of the debris that crayfish and hellbenders use, such as old logs and large, flat boulders. Perhaps most telling was that we saw fewer than two dozen elktoe mussels that day. Past surveys at this exact site turned up several hundred of them, Etchison said. Perkins said that people often have the perception that debris removal is 'charitable work,' but it's not. 'This was a taxpayer-funded endeavor,' he said, and some contractors 'are making millions by removing not just woody debris but also thousands of live, healthy or otherwise undamaged trees and vegetation that pose no risk to life or infrastructure.' In another river, known as the West Fork French Broad, a technician working with NCWRC told me that he saw similar signs of damage. Rocks that hellbenders live under were fractured, covered in sediment, or pushed into the riverbed, he said. From his experience walking the stream before and after debris removal, he also claims that contractors removed habitat features that were not a flood risk — either because they were here before the storm or not obstructing the channel. 'I don't know what's a more telling sign that something is not a threat to a future flood than something that was in the river before this flood and in the exact same place after,' the technician told me. 'They were operating in these rivers, treating them like highways, driving up and down, crushing everything.' Lori Williams, state wildlife biologist Etchison and two other state biologists allege that the Army Corps made little effort to coordinate with NCWRC to avoid harming threatened and endangered species. Once they learned that debris removal was underway, NCWRC sent Army Corps and other disaster recovery officials a one-page document with guidance on how to minimize harm to the ecosystems, such as by leaving stumps in place and, when possible, driving machines on the bank and not in the riverbed. The agency also produced detailed maps that marked areas with rare species, including the section of Little River that I visited. In those areas, the maps say, contractors should avoid running heavy machinery in the stream bed. NCWRC biologists asked the Corps to coordinate with them if they're clearing debris from rivers in those areas. 'We gave them [the Army Corps] all of this information and they ignored it,' Lori Williams, a conservation biologist and hellbender expert at NCWRC, told me. 'They were operating in these rivers, treating them like highways, driving up and down, crushing everything.' Early one morning I talked to a couple workers who were clearing debris from a stream north of Asheville. They were both from out of state and hadn't heard any complaints about their work. Locals were happy they were cleaning up, they told me. But I also heard another story. A man named Nathan Turpin, who briefly worked for a subcontractor of AshBritt doing debris removal, told me that he left the job, in part, because of the focus on 'production.' 'I ended up walking off the job just for the fact that we were pressured to produce a lot of yardage of debris every day to make a profit,' Turpin, who said he drove a dump truck, told me. 'There were a lot of plants and trees I saw that were being destroyed for no reason.' Who deserves blame — and are they accepting it? No single company or organization is at fault for the mismanaged debris removal, experts told me. Cleaning up involves a messy constellation of state and federal government agencies, private contractors and subcontractors, and independent monitors that audit the work. There are so many people involved that it's difficult to figure out who does what — and who's paying for it. And when you start asking questions, everyone involved tends to just point at each other. Key takeaways Scientists claim that cleanup from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina was careless and damaged the environment and wildlife in some areas. They claim that contractors hired by the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency, cleared far more debris from rivers than was necessary for public safety, removing habitat features there before Helene hit. They claim that those contractors were motivated by a perverse incentive common in the debris removal industry: Companies are paid by volume, so the more debris they remove, the more money they stand to make. The Army Corps told Vox that its contractors follow strict environmental guidelines to avoid undue ecological harm and it does not tolerate over-clearing of debris. The Corps provided detailed comments that experts Vox spoke to generally disagree with. Debris removal is nearly finished, but environmental experts say there's a big opportunity to make future cleanup efforts less destructive — largely, by changing the incentives for contractors. FEMA declined an interview request. In a written statement, FEMA told Vox that North Carolina coordinated with federal and state agencies to provide guidance for debris removal to counties and the Army Corps including measures to minimize environmental impacts. Those measures include using high-profile machines in riverbeds, so they don't bottom out, and filling heavy machinery with biodegradable hydraulic fluid, FEMA said in the statement. The details of that guidance are not clear. FEMA directed my follow-up questions to the Army Corps, which declined to share the environmental guidance that contractors were given. The Army Corps similarly declined an interview request, though it shared detailed comments in response to our reporting. The Army Corps told Vox that its contractors and subcontractors are required to follow strict environmental rules to minimize environmental harm — though again, it's not clear what those rules are. The agency also said that it does not tolerate over-clearing of debris. 'Contractors that exceed limits receive warnings or are removed from the job,' according to the statement. Dave Connolly, chief of public affairs for the Corp's Wilmington District, said the agency has not issued warnings or removed contractors. The agency also said it 'constantly' has quality assurance specialists on site to verify that contractors are removing only what they're tasked to remove. Some environmental experts I spoke to said the Army Corps didn't have sufficient oversight over their contractors or subcontractors to know whether or not they were over-extracting debris. The Army Corps also told me that 'wildlife biologists and environmental experts have been involved throughout the operation, particularly in areas where endangered species are known to exist.' That ensures cleanup has a minimal impact on wildlife and their habitats, the statement said. The state biologists I spoke to said that at least some of the wildlife biologists hired by debris removal contractors have little knowledge of the local endangered and threatened species. The Army Corps noted that they shared 'mapping data' with the state wildlife agency that's meant to indicate where contractors would be working. According to the Corps, that gave NCWRC the opportunity to advise workers when debris removal is happening in ecologically sensitive areas. The agency said it would 'attempt to adjust the debris removal plan in that area, and/or allow wildlife specialists the opportunity to temporarily relocate any discovered wildlife until debris removal in that specific location is complete.' The state biologists I spoke to said Army Corps contractors showed little indication that they would adjust a debris removal plan to spare rare animals. And often, the state agency wasn't aware of where the cleanup was happening because the mapping data was so hard to parse. 'We were not given the chance to locate and move animals out of harm's way,' Williams said. Although AshBritt declined to comment on the record, the Army Corps defended its work with the company: 'USACE's decision to contract with AshBritt was made after a thorough evaluation of their capabilities, experience, and past performance in emergency response operations,' the Corps said in its statement. 'There is no evidence to suggest AshBritt is unable to successfully fulfill its contracts.' (See here for a more detailed response from the Army Corps to our reporting.) Most of the damage from cleanup is already done. Scientists are looking to the next natural disaster. Killing federally threatened and endangered species, like elktoes and another mussel variety known as longsolids, is typically a crime — because they're protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). And that's why some environmental advocates have suggested to me that debris removal in certain regions, such as Little River, may have been illegal. I raised this with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees the ESA. Gary Peeples, the acting supervisor for the Asheville Field Office, told me that, at least so far, debris removal is not violating the act, even if it's killing endangered species. This is a bit wonky, but: Typically, the USFWS consults with federal agencies — in this case, FEMA, because it's financing the Corps's work — before taking actions that harm endangered species. Those agencies then receive what's called an incidental take statement, which creates an exception and essentially legalizes harm to federally protected species (assuming their actions don't jeopardize the entire existence of the species). In an emergency, however, consultation happens while the action is already underway, Peeples said. That's what happened here. In the coming weeks, he said, FEMA is supposed to report on how they've impacted endangered species, at which point the service will issue the agency a take statement. FEMA and the Army Corps have been 'diligently monitoring and documenting' the potential impacts of debris removal on threatened and endangered species, the Army Corps told me in its statement. 'From the legal standpoint, we must remember that the Endangered Species Act does allow for harmful impacts to species,' said Peeples. Still, he added, the impact of debris removal 'pains' him. 'Not only am I a biologist who works here, but I'm a resident who lives here and recreates in these areas,' he said. 'It is grossly unfortunate how things have played out.' Beyond raising alarm among local environmental experts, the cleanup has also prompted significant public outcry. And those complaints haven't gone unnoticed. In May, a number of state residents, including environmental advocates, met with Rep. Chuck Edwards — a Republican who represents western North Carolina — to express their concerns. Afterward, Edwards announced a new agreement with FEMA and the Army Corps 'to improve accountability and transparency' in the cleanup process. Under that agreement, landowners can mark important trees and other landscape features with flags. 'These flagged areas will not be disturbed until the property owner, the county, and USACE [US Army Corps of Engineers] engage in a consultation,' according to the announcement. Edwards also uploaded maps of where the Army Corps is working to his website. It's not clear whether this flagging approach has worked, or whether it was simply too little, too late. Edwards's office declined an interview request and, along with FEMA and the Army Corps, did not respond to a request to see the agreement. The opportunity now, experts told me, is to make future debris removal better — to learn from what environmental advocates call egregious mistakes. There are really only two things that those advocates want. The first is to change the incentive structure in the disaster recovery industry. Paying contractors by volume is 'the biggest problem,' Williams, the state biologist, told me. 'It puts a dollar sign on literally every leaf, stick, twig, [and] blade of grass out there. That's how these people are making money.' Instead, Williams, Lohmeyer, and other experts recommended paying contractors by linear foot — meaning the more distance they cover, the more money they make — or by job. A job might be, say, clearing debris from a particular creek or property. The other key ask is that the Army Corps and disaster recovery companies coordinate with regional environmental experts — the people, like Williams and Etchison, who typically know the ecology of the rivers far better than contractors. State biologists are not asking to stop or even slow debris removal. Just to take more care in regions known to contain incredibly rare creatures. Where cleanup has gone right(ish), hellbenders still lurk In some regions of North Carolina river, cleanup left a much smaller scar. According to Etchison and some of his colleagues, waterways in counties that opted to work with a contractor called Southern Disaster Recovery (SDR) instead of Army Corps contractors were generally left in better shape. SDR tended to listen to state biologists, he told me. 'They've done a pretty good job coordinating with us,' Etchison said. For example, when Etchison asked an SDR subcontractor to avoid removing specific bits of habitat, such as a log home to freshwater mussels, the contractor listened, Etchison said. That may be because SDR and their subcontractors are paid by linear foot to remove debris (though they're paid by volume to haul it away). As a result, Etchison said, there's still lots of large woody debris and big rocks for hellbenders to hide and nest under. After the survey in Little River, I drove with Etchison and Perkins to the banks of Mills River, which was cleaned up by SDR. This river, Etchison told me, was a good place to find hellbenders — in part, he said, because cleanup didn't wreck the waterway. There are still plenty of logs and bramble on the bank and big rocks for hellbenders to hide and nest under. 'If you have to do it, it was done the right way,' Etchison said of debris removal here. We slid down the bank and stepped into the cold water, which was waist deep and moving quickly. The water was murky, so we couldn't see the bottom, making walking tough and finding a hellbender tougher. Etchison and Perkins used their hands and feet to feel around for the kinds of rocks that these Hulkish salamanders love — large and flat, with a gap underneath that they can squeeze into. When they found such a rock, Perkins would position a seine in front of it and Etchison would lift the rock up. Then we'd check the net to see if a salamander had entered. We did this for more than an hour, catching mostly leaves and mud and a few crayfish and small fish. But eventually, somehow, this approach worked. Etchison lifted up a small slab of concrete on the riverbed and when Perkins lifted up the net, there was a squirming hellbender. These animals are famously ugly-cute: slimy brown with wrinkly skin, tiny eyes, and pudgy little hands. They look like something out of a Miyazaki film. Perhaps worrying about the future of unconventionally attractive animals like this is not a priority for everyone in the wake of disaster. Biologists have a hard time rallying the public around salamanders, especially compared to animals of the large and fluffy variety. Yet it's the hellbenders and the mussels and the crayfish and the fish that make these ecosystems so unique and healthy enough to support our own needs. Mussels clean the water. Crayfish break down debris. Hellbenders tell us when rivers may be polluted. While traveling in North Carolina I was constantly reminded that natural disasters are disasters for these animals, too. And that's troubling for North Carolina's utterly epic array of creatures because many regions — including the American Southeast — will likely face more flooding in the decades to come as the planet warms. The least we can do is be smart about how we react to it. 'We know that these types of high-velocity flooding events are going to continue to happen,' Stamper, of MountainTrue, said. 'It's devastating to watch these contractors and the Corps of Engineers create a secondary disaster. We don't want to see it happen elsewhere.' Solve the daily Crossword
The Hill
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Democrats can rebuild government by learning from how Trump has destroyed it
We know the tragic effects of President Trump's dismantling of the federal government. Social Security service delivery are in crisis. Calls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of disaster go unanswered. Rural hospitals brace for a loss of federal support. And now congressional Republicans are surrendering the power of the purse to further hobble core government services by choking off funding. But the truth is, Trump alone didn't break the federal government. He is putting the devastating capstone on a decades-long conservative project of undermining its capacity to function: underfunding agencies, outsourcing expertise, layering on procedural hurdles, stacking courts with partisan allies, and eroding public trust. Long before Trump took office, the result was a government that couldn't move quickly, deliver boldly or meet the needs of the people it was supposed to serve. And when the government is unable to visibly respond to people's discontent and aspirations within the timeframe of an electoral mandate, the legitimacy of democracy itself erodes. If Democrats truly believe in the power of government to improve people's lives, they should be cautious about reverting to pre-Trump institutions. Our time in the Biden-Harris administration taught us that the federal government wasn't meeting the needs of middle- or working-class people long before the 2024 election. What was left of it has now been intentionally sabotaged. If we want to implement a bold policy agenda in the future — one that truly creates agency, power and opportunity for people who don't have it — we have to start planning now to build the basic infrastructure for a government that's much more responsive to and resonant with ordinary Americans, not the monied few. For too long, Democrats have been stuck in a vicious cycle of playing catch-up in a game with existential stakes. Phase one: Republicans dismantle government programs and services and trigger economic crises through their laissez-faire approach to governance. Phase two: Democrats retake power, and then scramble to steer a hobbled system back to the status quo. Phase three: Democrats fail to deliver the visible change the electorate craves, Republicans retake power, and the cycle repeats. What has to change? We need to confront a hard truth: Despite good intentions and tireless efforts from appointees and civil servants alike, the old tools and norms have not worked. Administrative rulemaking has been too slow, fragile, and captured by well-resourced industries to meaningfully serve the public interest. Major policies passed with fanfare took four or more years to show results — long after voters were asked to judge them. Meanwhile, activist courts stacked by the right delayed or dismantled even modest reforms. Agencies were afraid to antagonize the powerful industries they were supposed to oversee, or to take an investment risk and face public failure. Enforcement against corporate lawbreaking was underfunded and slow. Outsourcing of core government functions made private contractors rich even when their performance was shoddy. And far too often, the government was a distant, impenetrable behemoth that piled paperwork on Americans, instead of proactively listening to them to understand their needs and deliver frictionless services in response. We can't win back faith in government with policies that are invisible, delayed or drowned in process. We need a new playbook — one that matches the urgency of the moment and the acuteness of people's needs. One that learns, paradoxically, from the relentlessness of Trump and his allies. What they've demonstrated is that the rules and norms constraining government action aren't fixed laws of nature. They're conventions — and they can be changed. If there's no political cost for ignoring them in the service of corporate power and oligarchic corruption, there should be even less fear about changing them to make government work better for ordinary people. Democrats should take the lesson: Flip the risk profile. Go big or go home. That means reorganizing policymaking around speed, visibility and political resonance. It means building teams around outcome-driven missions — not statutes, institutional bias or risk-averse compliance. It means treating economic, legal, outreach and communications strategy as one integrated campaign, and working much more collaboratively with our state and local government partners and community-based organizations. It means starting work long before Day One with the understanding that we will need to simultaneously build and deliver: pre-drafting policies, mapping authorities, recruiting top-flight talent and identifying the signature priorities for each agency that will show up in people's lives within a single term. These are unified campaign-style operations, not bureaucratic ones. And it means breaking free from the norms that keep the government mired in caution. Abolish or radically retool obsolete veto gates, such as the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Limit judicial meddling in economic policy choices made by political leaders accountable to the people, and refocus courts on protecting individual liberties. Make the government great to work for again, and repopulate it with technologists, statisticians, product managers, service designers, community organizers and movement lawyers. Clean out the procedural clutter that saps time and bandwidth. We've seen what gets in the way. Now it's time to start clearing it. Importantly, when we act, we must act boldly. During the last administration, the types of policies that resonated were the big, simple, universal ones: a cap on insulin prices, a ban on junk fees, an end to noncompetes, a free, easy way to file your taxes. These were policies designed to be tangible, memorable and swift — and they addressed economic frustrations that transcend partisan lines. That's not just good economics. It's good politics. It's good democracy. Policies must provide proof that the government can still work for ordinary people, not just large corporations or insiders. For too long, Democrats have tried to govern within a framework designed to thwart them and to protect entrenched interests. Trump simply ignored it. If we want to change that trajectory for government, we need to be just as fearless and bold in building a new framework as Republicans have been in destroying the old one. If Democrats want to lead, the party must demonstrate that the government can — and will — continue to change lives for the better. Let's stop trying to tinker with a broken machine. Let's start building one that actually works.
Axios
a day ago
- Politics
- Axios
FEMA search and rescue chief exits agency after Texas flood response
The chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency urban search and rescue team resigned Monday over frustrations on how the government handled the Texas flood response, CNN first reported. The big picture: Ken Pagurek's resignation comes as the agency approaches peak disaster season, while fighting off accusations of a delayed disaster response in Texas as President Trump pushes to overhaul FEMA. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem implemented a rule in June that requires every funding request over $100,000 have her personal sign-off before funds can be dispersed, which reportedly complicated the Texas response. Pagurek told colleagues that the bureaucratic red tape that delayed the response was what pushed him to resign, according to CNN. "This decision was not made lightly, and after much reflection and prayer, it is the right path for me at this time," Pagurek wrote in a resignation letter that didn't mention the flood response. What they're saying:"It is laughable that a career public employee, who claims to serve the American people, would choose to resign over our refusal to hastily approve a six-figure deployment contract without basic financial oversight," a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Axios in response to a request for comment. "We're being responsible with taxpayer dollars, that's our job," the spokesperson continued in the statement. "Attempting to spin a personal career decision into some big scandal is ridiculous." The DHS spokesperson also said "FEMA experienced no delays in deployment of assets" and that Texas officials have "applauded" the government's response. Catch up quick: The July 4 flooding killed at least 135 people in central Texas, and three people are still missing as the search continues on its third week. Zoom out: Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of dismantling FEMA, and has suggested that his administration may try to bring disaster response "down to the state level."
