With the Texas flash flooding dominating disaster news for the last several weeks, numerous emergency management topics have been in the media. They have included flood planning, issuing of warnings, warning methodologies, emergency management responsibilities, at the city, county and state, zoning, land management, permitting, search and rescue, etc. The list includes FEMA’s performance in the response.

Check out the most recent  Disaster Zone Podcast, Destroying FEMA

he head line tells the story, Camp Mystic’s leader got a ‘life threatening’ flood alert. They evacuated an hour later

It is literally a “read it and weep” story. The National Weather Service did its job to the best of their ability. The storms were detected. Flood watches and warnings were sent in a timely manner. The final aspect of warnings that I’ve written about time and again was the fact that people/leadership did not act on the warnings that they did receive.

My only question that I’d add that was not asked is this one, “If as you say negative reports on call center’s not being fully operational are fake news, and FEMA responded perfectly to the Texas flooding, what aspect of FEMA do you want to reform?”

This is one of the more recent newspaper articles about FEMA and their current capacity to do the work, FEMA Didn’t Answer Thousands of Calls From Flood Survivors, Documents Show

Previous statements from the Secretary of Homeland Security Christi Noem have pushed for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to be eliminated. Now the caveat has been added “in its current form.”  I still think that they might figure out that getting rid of FEMA is not the same as gutting USAID. Who cares about some poor child in another continent. However, if you are an “American First” type of leader that means that “Americans” need to get the disaster aid.

Readers of this blog know that I’m a big advocate for using technology to advance the cause of disaster resilience in all its forms. AI is in all our futures. Eventually we will have AI being a key element of programs we use for a multitude of purposes. 

I thought this was an accurate assessment for some aspects of the Texas flood disaster, Why Texas’ floods are a warning for the rest of the country

This comes from Craig Fugate’s LinkedIn profile.

There have been some pretty dumb moves by the Trump administration, but this one ranks right up there with some of the worst, Feds Cutting Satellite Data Used to Forecast Hurricanes

For the foreseeable future, every disaster event will include a mention of issues with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). See this New York Times article, In Flooded Texas, Questions About FEMA’s Role and Fate

I expect that if you ask the “average citizen” what the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) does, the response would be something like, “They deal with disasters.” Likely they have no information about their own state and local emergency management offices. 

I found it interesting that a private industry group had this article/commentary, The Next Disaster: Who Will Manage Our Response?

As they note, without FEMA each state will have to reallocate their priorities on disaster spending. 

Emergency managers are not usually involved with things like keeping machinery out of the mud. I can tell you from many “engagements” in the US Army and two armored divisions, mud and unstable ground can make a mess of things. That is why they have an armored vehicle that is a “tow truck” for tanks, for when they get stuck in the mud.

jq@changeupadvisors.com

I don’t know how many blog posts I’ve written about the troubles with issuing warnings of disasters. There have been scores for sure over the 30 years that I have been blogging.

Emergency managers are not usually involved with things like keeping machinery out of the mud. I can tell you from many “engagements” in the US Army and two armored divisions, mud and unstable ground can make a mess of things. That is why they have an armored vehicle that is a “tow truck” for tanks, for when they get stuck in the mud

The following article from the New York Times Trump Looks to Avoid Casting Blame in Texas Flood as Democrats Question Cuts got me thinking about who is to be blamed. Or, more specifically, who to blame for what aspect of the disaster that has now killed over 100 people in Texas? In general, I’d have to say that the Pottery Barn rule applies to disasters. If you break it, you own it. If it happens on your watch as an elected official or emergency manager, you own it…it is your snowstorm, your flood, your earthquake, your hurricane, your power outage, your hazardous materials spill, etc.

I have not had a chance to review this document, but it was just published in July 2025, FEMA Preliminary Damage Assessment Guide

In the near future we will be reading much more on the topic of disaster aid to states and local communities. The Trump Administration has verbally proposed reducing disaster aid to states and requiring them to step up and bear more of the burden of disaster recovery costs for Public Assistance (PA) that focuses on governmental damages, e.g. roads, bridges, etc.

I mentioned this a few months ago. I feel as most Americans don’t consider disaster preparedness as having to do with what we used to call “civil defense.” That old Cold War term seems to be behind us.

Heat is more than the temperature showing on the thermometer. It is a combination of temperature and humidity. See this National Weather Service explanation of the heat index