One heckuva job

The head of FEMA’s Search and Rescue operation has resigned:

The head of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue branch, which runs a network of teams stationed across the country that can swiftly respond to natural disasters, resigned on Monday.

Ken Pagurek’s departure comes less than three weeks after a delayed FEMA response to catastrophic flooding in central Texas caused by bureaucratic hurdles put in place by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the disaster response agency.

Pagurek told colleagues at FEMA that the delay was the tipping point that led to his voluntary departure after months of frustration with the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. It took more than 72 hours after the flooding for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to authorize the deployment of FEMA’s search and rescue network.

After spending more than a decade with FEMA’s urban search and rescue system, including about a year as its chief, Pagurek said in his resignation letter, obtained by CNN, that he was returning to the Philadelphia Fire Department and did not mention the Texas flooding.

I’d have to say the his colleagues seem quite credible on the question of the timing of his resignation:

“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,” another DHS spokesman said in a statement about Pagurek’s resignation. “We’re being responsible with taxpayer dollars, that’s our job.”

Oh, right, certainly no need to be hasty when it comes to…rescuing people, including girls at camp, from floodwaters, when SIX FIGURES are at stake. This would be incredibly grotesque nihilism even without the context of the administration’s central legislation being a massive upper-class cut funded by unprecedentedly vicious cuts to Medicaid, cuts to food assistance, and tons and tons of additional debt.

Time for another Salena Zito report about Donald Trump’s deep empathy for Americans in the heartland, I guess.