Two days after catastrophic floods roared through Central Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

Two days after catastrophic floods roared through Central Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The lack of responsiveness happened because the agency had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters.

  • someguy3@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 days ago

    On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7%, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.

    That evening, however, Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter.

    The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8%, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9%, the documents show.

    How could they not use AI??? (/s)