MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The recovery effort underway in Kerrville is a nonstop operation.
JONATHAN LAM: We've been going 24/7 since the very, very early morning hours of July 4. And we haven't stopped, and we haven't slowed down.
MARTIN: Jonathan Lam is a spokesperson with the Kerrville Police Department.
LAM: Our Hill Country people have stepped up in a really big way to support not just local first responders, but all of the responders who are here helping with this effort. People coming together and just the outpouring of love and support has really been humbling.
MARTIN: But this all comes as the Trump administration has been criticizing FEMA for months, even suggesting they want to close it down or at least make major changes to the way it operates. We wanted to talk about that with Deanne Criswell. She served as administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Biden. She oversaw responses to disasters like tornadoes in Mississippi in 2023 and the wildfires that swept across Los Angeles County, and she's with us now. Administrator Criswell, thanks so much for joining us.
DEANNE CRISWELL: Good morning, Michel. Happy to be here.
MARTIN: So let me note that there are plenty of people in the field working, as you just heard, working really very hard. The FEMA administrator doesn't seem to be on-site, so I did want to ask - how would you have handled this?
CRISWELL: I think it's really important for the FEMA administrator to get there as soon as possible. For me, I wanted to get there the next day. And often I was there within 24 hours, sometimes 48 hours, because I wanted to be able to see firsthand what the impact was, but also talk to local leaders, talk to those families. Like, hearing their stories so I can understand the stress and the trauma that they're going through, but also see the amount of devastation so I could make the appropriate decisions and recommendations to the president for how quickly to even enable or authorize a presidential disaster declaration. It's really hard to make those decisions when you're sitting in an office in Washington, D.C.
MARTIN: And what about prepositioning resources? One of the things I think that you would do routinely is preposition resources at the first sign of a disaster, and then you could pull them out if they weren't needed. Is that accurate?
CRISWELL: Yeah, absolutely, Michel. The one thing that we want to do is not be late to need. And so the role of an emergency manager is to anticipate what the potential requests might be from a state. And so we want to move those resources in. What I would have been doing is moving resources in starting on Friday, as soon as we saw how bad this was. Even before a presidential declaration, FEMA has that ability to move them. They just can't employ them until there's a declaration and until the state asks for them. But in the end, if they don't need them, then we'll just turn them around and bring them back. But it's always better to have them in place and not need them than to be behind the eight ball and playing catch-up.
MARTIN: Resident Trump has said he wants to phase out FEMA. The administration has been walking that back recently after the floods. But if FEMA were to get cut or eliminated, could states handle recovery of a major disaster like this on their own?
CRISWELL: I think it's important to really look at what is happening right now. Texas is probably the most capable state that's out there - lots of resources. But they also requested resources through the state-to-state mutual aid compact. But those types of resources also get reimbursed by FEMA. If this were to happen in another state that doesn't have that much capability, it would just make it that much harder for response. But it's the recovery that's so complicated, right? During my time as administrator, I never had anybody complain to me about response. What I heard in the frustration from state directors all the time was recovery. We really need to focus our attention on, how do we help streamline recovery so these communities can rebuild faster?
MARTIN: So I have to point out, you know, the former - the acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, MaryAnn Tierney, recently wrote an essay for the - a guest essay for The New York Times, where she said that, I quote, "the uncomfortable truth is this - with each passing day, the federal government is becoming less prepared to face the next big disaster. And as the risk grows, the ability to deliver on its vital disaster response mission is shrinking." And she resigned. Do you think that that's true? Do you agree with her?
CRISWELL: I do think that that's true, right? I think that if you don't have the autonomy as the FEMA administrator to be able to lean forward and do the things that you know need to happen, and if you're limited by administrative hurdles, then you are just going back to the pre-Katrina days. And that's what we don't want. The reason that the changes were made after Katrina was to make sure that you had an agile agency. And again, we're spending a lot of time talking about response. But this recovery is going to be really difficult if we don't have the trained and experienced personnel to be able to support these communities.
MARTIN: That is the former administrator of FEMA, Deanne Criswell. Administrator, thank you so much for talking with us.
CRISWELL: Thanks, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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