The devastation from the catastrophic July 4 weekend flooding in Kerr County, Texas, has killed at least 132 people and left more than 170 missing.
As search-and-rescue teams look for missing victims, the tragedy underscores the importance of having a well-founded and well-run Federal Emergency Management Agency that can coordinate resources to assist local and state governments in response to disasters.
However the future of FEMA is uncertain.
So far, President Donald Trump has been silent on his past, repeated promises to do away with the federal agency.
Trump has made slashing the federal workforce and dramatically cutting the size of government the centerpiece of his administration.
Before the flooding in Texas, Trump pledged as recently as last month to begin phasing out FEMA and bringing disaster response “down to the state level.”
The president’s past position on shutting down FEMA and slashing social spending was outlined in Project 2025, a 900-page policy guidebook by the Heritage Foundation, to reshape the federal government and consolidate executive power in favor of right-wing policies.
One of the main authors and key architects of Project 2025 is Russell Vought, who is now the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
When asked last week about FEMA’s future, Vought dodged the question.
However Project 2025 shifting FEMA costs to the states. Trump has suggested he could “get rid of FEMA and leave disaster response management to the states.
“That’s what states are for, to take care of problems,” Trump said in late January.
The Trump administration’s new policies have already had an impact on how the federal government responds to disasters.
The Washington Post reports that a veteran official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency told the newspaper that “one of the main concerns for this disaster season was the agency’s ability to quickly deploy specialized search-and-rescue teams. The Trump administration’s new rules mean disaster specialists can no longer “make decisions” on their own.
This is what happened in Texas.
As the Post reports “Deployments of critical resources, such as tactical and specialized search and rescue teams, were delayed as a result of a budget restriction requiring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem to approve every purchase, contract and grant over $100,000, according to a dozen current and former FEMA employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.”
In recent months, FEMA has lost hundreds of employees, important leaders and institutional knowledge which impact its ability to quickly spend billions of dollars on its reservists, contracts, search-and-rescue crews, overtime, food, housing and other emergency services as well as survivors’ claims and recovery grants.
As a result of the overhaul at FEMA, the federal agency has already denied requests for federal aid in response to severe storms and tornadoes in Arkansas, West Virginia and Washington.
However, many states do not have the capacity to handle large-scale disasters on their own and rely on federal assistance from FEMA.
The Trump administration’s new policies on federal disaster response could result in hundreds of preventable deaths and injuries.
Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune
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