Exclusive: FEMA Didn’t Sufficiently Staff Disaster Hotline After Texas Floods

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the days after disastrous floods tore through Texas Hill Country last month, tens of thousands of calls to a federal aid hotline went unanswered, after FEMA failed to fund the call center. We discuss how the Trump administration’s government restructuring plans led to this problem and what it could mean for future disasters.

This episode: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, politics correspondent Stephen Fowler, and climate correspondent Rebecca Hersher.

This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.

Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Immigration raids, masked ice agents, Operation Patriot.
0:05.8	Our podcast, Here and Now Anytime is looking at Trump's agenda of mass deportation through the eyes of one state.
0:12.6	I'm coming to Boston. I'm bringing hell with me.
0:14.7	Listen to the podcast, Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBOR.
0:27.7	Hi, this is Danny in San Diego.
0:32.1	I'm warming up and waiting for the thunder eyes so I can play a round of disc golf.
0:38.6	This podcast was recorded at 105 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, August 12th, 2025.
0:42.9	Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll still be working on my putting.
0:46.6	Enjoy the show.
1:11.6	Oh, that's some great what we call ambient sound, Nat Sound in radio. At least it's not pickleball. Oh, you have something against pickleball? Everyone's into that, aren't they? Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Stephen Fowler. I also cover politics. And NPR climate correspondent Rebecca Herscher joins us also today.
1:12.4	Welcome back, Rebecca.
1:12.9	Hi.
1:15.3	Today on the show, an NPR exclusive.
1:19.7	In the days following the disastrous flood in Texas Hill Country last month,
1:27.1	the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, failed to answer tens of thousands of the calls coming into its call centers. These were calls from
1:28.7	flood survivors, trying to get help paying for things like a hotel room or diapers or food.
1:35.0	Rebecca, you've reported that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, had let
1:40.1	funding for these call centers lapse. And I want to back up just a little bit. Can you explain more
1:45.8	about what these call centers are and how they're normally supposed to be working?
1:50.2	Yeah, absolutely. So this is like the hotline that people call after disasters. And this is like
1:55.8	the way that you would try to get money for your immediate needs if, for example, you were in a flood and you
2:01.8	lost everything. So like money for food, clothing, diapers, formula, temporary shelter, you know,
	...

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