This article appears in the October 2025 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here.
The federal government had come a long way from the heckuva-job-Brownie days of George W. Bush and Michael Brown, the unqualified head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) who mangled the Hurricane Katrina disaster response in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast.
Yet 20 years and another unqualified FEMA leader later, despite reforms intended to guard against future agency heads joking (or not) about the hurricane season, America’s disaster response has devolved into something more akin to the pre-FEMA era’s improvisions. After two decades of major disasters in the 1960s and ’70s like the Hilo, Hawaii, tsunami, the Alaska earthquake (the worst in American history), and major hurricanes including Agnes, the National Governors Association called for a reorganization of the country’s decentralized emergency preparedness and disaster response systems in 1977. FEMA debuted two years later.
The Trump administration’s zeal to stamp out a flawed but essential agency has been interrupted by the mind-numbing display of bureaucratic micromanaging: the federal response to the Central Texas flash floods in July that killed 135 people, among them children vacationing in summer camps. “As sad as that is, unfortunately, that is typically what moves the needle in terms of disaster policy throughout history,” says Jeff Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. “It’s not the data forecasting what’s going to happen. It’s the lives lost when it does happen—and this happened in a red state.”
The requirement that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sign off on agency expenses above $100,000 compromised FEMA disaster hotline availability and search and rescue missions so severely that FEMA’s head of urban search and rescue resigned in frustration.
None of those facts made it into an August DHS press release that offered an upbeat, wholly unsubstantiated perspective on the agency, declaring that after 200 days, “FEMA is 100% faster in getting boots-on-the-ground to respond to disasters.” Nim Kidd, the head of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, claimed, “I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years, and I can say with confidence that this was the fastest and most effective federal support Texas has ever received.”
Earlier this year, President Trump signed an executive order that “empowers State, local, and individual preparedness and injects common sense into infrastructure prioritization and strategic investments through risk-informed decisions that make our infrastructure, communities, and economy resilient to global and dynamic threats and hazards.” An administration “review council” will consider what comes next for the emasculated agency, with a final report due in November.
Only the federal government can come up with billions of dollars in the direst catastrophes.
But common sense isn’t so common. Only the federal government can come up with the billions of dollars and assets to backstop the 50 states, local governments, territories, and tribal lands in the direst catastrophes. In an era when storms and wildfires are more frequent, stronger, and more expensive to respond to and recover from, shifting more of that burden onto states and localities after a jumble of executive orders, layoffs, firings, and delaying or withholding funds displays an obsession with cost-cutting by any means necessary and no concern with the ability of states to deal with catastrophes.
One long-held fallacy that cratered FEMA’s public image is the misguided belief that the federal government parachutes in with fists full of dollars to backstop local efforts as soon as the rains end or the last embers flicker out. It’s led to “Where’s FEMA?” outbursts by angry, despondent survivors who aren’t aware of officials scrambling, or have been taken in by mis/disinformation that compounds their agonies.
After a disaster, local and state officials are the first ones on the ground in many cases, not FEMA. The amount of financial assistance that a community might receive depends on the scope of devastation. A small storm or fire that affects few properties, with no loss of life, particularly in areas that are susceptible to severe storms and wildfires, is usually handled by municipalities and states.
Even broader damage might still not reach the federal threshold for a disaster declaration. The federal government has been selective in how it responds. The National Emergency Management Association reports that in fiscal year 2023 there were nearly 25,000 disasters in the United States; of those, only 60 received a federal disaster declaration.
Under the 1988 Stafford Act, the president approves major disaster declarations for cataclysmic situations that are beyond the capabilities of local and state officials, and emergency declarations for smaller upheavals where federal assistance can help stave off more serious consequences.
“The issue that it often comes down to is who is going to pay for those resources?” says Samantha Montano, a Massachusetts Maritime Academy associate professor of emergency management. “That’s why that declaration is so important, because it comes with money.”
FEMA has historically paid most of the costs for major disasters. Urging states to improve how they gear up for seasonal upheavals like tornadoes, hurricanes, and wildfires is not new. Having states budget for disasters as they might for education or health care has had support from Democrats and Republicans. One such proposal, a state disaster deductible proposed by Craig Fugate, the FEMA administrator during the Obama years, evaporated under the first Trump administration.
But swerving from dependence on Washington after a catastrophe to deep budget cuts and homegrown self-reliance in just a few months produced the horror show that played out on the ground in Texas Hill Country.
PRESIDENT BIDEN SIGNED A MAJOR DISASTER declaration for North Carolina after Tropical Storm Helene on September 28, 2024. The day before, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) approved the deployment of an eight-member volunteer urban search and rescue team to assist local officials in western North Carolina under the auspices of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). The mayor of Norwalk agreed to send a volunteer from the city’s fire department, a hazmat command and communications unit, along with a fire department utility truck and an ATV for the mission.
EMAC, a national mutual aid framework overseen by the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA), provides disaster relief in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, with people and equipment, but not funding. States providing assistance can seek reimbursement or send aid at no cost to a receiving state; but that is not linked to a state’s request for a federal declaration or funding. Connecticut and the other New England states also have reciprocal disaster assistance relationships with Canada’s eastern provinces through the International Emergency Management Assistance Compact.
With fewer natural disasters, Connecticut sends more assistance than it receives. “When we put in a bid to help another state, we up front say this is what it’s going to cost, so we know what resources are going to get reimbursed if we send them,” says William Turner, the state’s emergency management director. “[EMAC] is really the mechanism that allows all of us to respond and recover before we have to get FEMA pulled in. We’ve got that piece pretty well figured out. We just need to understand where FEMA is going to end up when the dust settles.”
In New Orleans, local residents have stepped into the city’s disaster preparedness void.
EMAC isn’t safe from a disintegrating FEMA. The mutual aid system runs exclusively on National Incident Management System funding provided through DHS and FEMA. However, in early September, FEMA failed to sign off on EMAC’s annual $2 million grant. Lynn Budd, NEMA’s president, told the national news outlet NOTUS that the episode “certainly flies in the face of the idea that states need to take on more responsibility.” The system finally received its monies, but this snafu raises critical questions about how EMAC can remain effective and navigate the volatile federal environment.
“EMAC works well, as long as there is trust and security among the states that there is going to be funding to pay for those resources,” Montano says. “Once you lose assurance that there is going to be funding for those resources, that can break apart very quickly, not because other states don’t want to help each other, but because the funding isn’t there to do it.”
Before Helene, North Carolina was fairly well off, with a healthy $5 billion in its reserve fund for disasters. Today, about $1 billion has gone to disaster relief, with that account now down to about $3.5 billion. State officials have estimated the total cost of Helene at $60 billion. The proposed state budget for fiscal year 2026 is nearly $34 billion. FEMA has reimbursed about $1 billion.
Trying to work around bureaucratic inertia can backfire. Henderson County in western North Carolina decided not to wait for FEMA funds for debris removal and spent $20 million up front, thinking that the federal payout would be speedier. Across the border, Tennessee took another tack, setting up a Helene Emergency Assistance Loan Program. The $100 million loan fund provides no-interest loans to eligible counties for hauling debris, as well as water and wastewater infrastructure repairs.
Even wealthy states that see frequent natural disasters don’t have the fiscal wherewithal to absorb the multibillions of a major catastrophe. Florida relies heavily on the federal government for response assistance and dollars. In the wildfire sector, California and Washington have devised budgetary formulas based on past disaster costs to allocate funds to disaster accounts. Montana moves a portion of excess general funds once every two years into a wildfire suppression fund. But though those steps have to be taken, particularly now, they don’t deliver enough money.
For some states, moving from “what if” to the “when” in state disaster budgeting is a radical paradigm shift. Historically less-prepared states have had to step up recovery and resilience programs. After several years of federal disaster declarations, an extreme rainfall event in 2015, and Hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018, South Carolina created an office of resilience. Focusing on coastal and riverine areas, the state encourages strategies to manage waterways and mitigate flooding across communities, recognizing that if a downstream area has strong building codes, storm plans, and public awareness of risks, those efforts may not matter much if an upstream town doesn’t make comparable investments.
Being proactive is critical, says Peter Muller of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Managing Fiscal Risks project. “They’re trying to put money aside for costs they know they’re going to have, officially, before it happens, so that you don’t have to go and suddenly scramble and pull money from other priorities when a disaster does happen.”
Local residents also have stepped in to fill disaster preparedness gaps. Imagine Water Works, a New Orleans climate and disaster relief group, set up community power stations in neighborhoods after Hurricane Zeta in 2020, when three hurricanes and two tropical storms hit the state, the most in any calendar year. Residents were able to charge devices at homes and businesses that still had or regained power.
With the pandemic raging, residents were also able to pick up hand sanitizer, masks, and other COVID-19 supplies. The group asked fire stations to host charging stations and help people get oxygen for medical devices. They reached out to the city again the following year, and by the third year New Orleans officials began to duplicate their efforts. Fire stations also offer cooling facilities now.
With a robust network of indigenous and LGBTQ people, the group also has locations in Houma and southwest Louisiana as well as other local groups across the Deep South. “My relationship is very good with government. Folks who work in that space will contact me directly and ask for help spreading messages to folks, and we have a large social media presence, and we’re trusted,” says Klie Kliebert, the group’s executive director.
TO MARK THE KATRINA ANNIVERSARY, a group of past and present FEMA employees demanded that Congress wake up to the threat posed by dumping the agency leadership reforms that came out of the 2005 debacle. Some employees were suspended. Restoring FEMA’s independence has support in Congress, but saving FEMA, much less any of the dozens of vital agencies that have been rocketed into oblivion by the Trump administration, hasn’t prioritized faster action.
President Trump’s assault on disaster assistance has had one unifying effect, ginning up varying degrees of outrage and disbelief from every corner of the country. In the short term at least, there’s been the faintest glimmer of off-camera comity between Texas and California, two of the most disaster-prone states in the country, despite the cold civil war over redistricting: In mid-July, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) sent a three-member human remains detection team to Texas, which boosted urban search and rescue personnel in Texas to 42 people.
Twenty states have sued FEMA and DHS to restore funding that had already been allocated under incentivized mitigation programs like Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), enacted under the first Trump administration. This second time around, FEMA canceled BRIC. A federal judge ordered the White House to halt any reallocation of $4 billion in BRIC funds.
2025 has been a quiet season on the hurricane front—so far. Escaping the threat posed by Hurricane Erin, which steered off into the open Atlantic away from coasts, appears to have dampened any urgency in Washington surrounding this mess. What happens next will signal whether the states can hang together and demand an end to whims disguised as policy or whether federalism is as moribund as the rest of America’s democratic systems. It may take another massive calamity to field-test that proposition.
This article appears in Oct 2025 Issue.