What The Future Holds For FEMA In North Carolina

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Hi, it's Jen.

Before we get into today's show on FEMA,

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We'll have more for you during the Friday news roundup,

and stay tuned to your local NPR station and NPR.org

for the latest.

This morning, a monster storm unleashed its fury overnight

on Florida's Gold Coast.

Hurricane Halina, catastrophic category

for showing no mercy, destroying property,

flooding hotel lobbies, businesses, and homes.

To the west now, with a Gifford fire burning

through the rugged backcountry of California's Central Coast

is now the state's largest wildfire of the year.

It reached so-called mega-fire status.

In fact, it's one of 38 large fires burning right now

across nine states.

Heavy snow, pummeling parts of the Midwest.

In Minnesota, this powerful storm system

leading to icy roads and reduced visibility.

The state slammed with more than two feet.

Across Oklahoma's Panhandle, an urgent rush

to escape the flames, as five fires have burned more than 150,000 acres

across the region.

Wildfires, flooding, and hurricanes,

just a few of the weather disasters we grapple with every year

throughout the U.S.

As extreme weather events grow more frequent and costly,

the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency

is more important than ever.

Kristi Nome is out at the Department of Homeland Security,

which oversees FEMA.

That means the agency will soon have

a new leader managing disaster response

and recovery in the U.S.

And that's big news for states like North Carolina

where people are still recovering from Hurricane Helene.

Federal funds have been slow to roll out.

So what does the future of FEMA hold as the agency

sorts through a backlog of billions of dollars

in federal disaster relief funding?

And what does it all mean for states like North Carolina

that have had to bear the burden of disaster related costs

as their communities try to recover?

I'm Jen White.

You're listening to the 1A podcast.

We'll be back to tackle those questions

and more after this short break.

Stay with us.

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Welcome back.

And let's get right into our conversation

about FEMA and how disaster response and recovery

in the US will be managed in the future.

Joining us from Los Angeles is Brianna Sachs.

She's a disaster correspondent at the Washington Post.

Brianna, welcome back to the program.

Thanks so much for having me back.

Joining us from WAMU in Washington is Barry Scanlon.

He's a former senior advisor

of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

He's also the president and co-founder of DCMC Partners.

That's a crisis management and public safety consulting firm

that helps with recovery from crises and disasters.

Barry, it's always great to have you.

Thank you, Jim.

And joining us from Asheville is Gerard Albert.

He's the Western North Carolina rural communities reporter

for Blue Ridge Public Radio.

Gerard, thanks for joining us.

Happy to be here.

So in 2024 Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina hard.

Especially counties along the western part of the state.

Gerard, where do we cover effort stand a year and a half

after that storm?

Well, big picture wise, the storm

caused $60 billion in damage.

And so far, only $7 billion give or take,

billion dollars have been allocated

from the federal government.

On a more on the ground level, there

are still hundreds of people living in RVs and trailers

and temporary housing waiting on home repairs.

There are still many local governments

who are waiting on dozens of millions of dollars

in FEMA reimbursements after clearing debris

in the immediacy after the storm.

So as you say, North Carolina requested federal funds

to cover around half of the estimated $60 billion

in damage the storm caused.

State officials say, look, we've received

about 10% of that money.

Federal officials say they've given North Carolina

at least $1 billion for recovery efforts.

Brianna, what's the disconnect between what state leaders

are saying and what the government is saying?

Yeah, we, that's a great question.

The DHS has been holding up hundreds of millions

of pre-approved funds for North Carolina for months now.

I think we did a deep dive into this last August.

And we also looked at data that showed

that they had given more money to Tennessee and Florida

for hurricanes, Hurricane Helena

and Hurricane Milton than North Carolina.

And so that is the overwhelming question.

DHS says it's pushing out money faster

than any other administration.

But again, we keep seeing states like North Carolina

and communities on the ground just not getting that money

quickly.

And it's just been a lot of frustrating

back and forth from state officials,

such as Governor Josh in having to send all these letters

to Nome and the contract,

the $100,000 contract process has held up

a lot of money over the last, I guess,

like nine, 10 months now since it was instituted last summer.

And what you're talking about there is now former head

of DHS, Kristi Nome's decision to have anything,

$100,000 or more approved by her office, correct?

Yes, the ramifications of that decision

are still being seen, we probably don't know.

But I have just been talking to FEMA employees

across the agency for a long time.

And even DHS officials who have been saying

that this just caused massive chaos and backlog

and prevented states such as North Carolina

from getting money that, again, FEMA moves slowly

and is already bureaucratic.

This procedure, as well as others instituted by the former

DHS secretary, really just caused a pretty serious hold-up

and slow down of disaster fund, release funds.

Well, Barry, give us some context, historically,

what role has FEMA played in providing funding

before, during and after disasters like Hurricane Helene?

Well, there's always been money for planning,

training, exercises and for mitigation works,

making bridges stronger, protecting schools

from the next storm, but the large amount of money,

the vast majority of money is always in disaster recovery.

And FEMA's process is Byzantine and it is long

and it needs to be improved and fixed

and there's a bill in the house that's passed

the Transportation Infrastructure Committee to do that

and hopefully that will move forward

and simplify some of these processes.

But as has been mentioned, normally,

you would go to a school, document the damages

and then work with FEMA to come up with a number

and then it gets to Washington

and it takes about a week or 10 days

to get through what we call the million dollar queue.

And that queue has now taken six months, nine months,

12 months, given the past secretary.

And all that does is delay children from getting back

into school, hospitals from fixing an emergency room,

a whole host of things that you can think

of in public infrastructure,

that impact real people's lives every day.

Now, Gerard, we spoke briefly

about the difficulty North Carolina has faced

in securing the funds they need for relief

from Hurricane Helene.

Now, the federal government granted $116 million

in disaster relief funding to the state for recovery

and to prevent future disaster damage across the state.

But that money came a month after North Carolina

in more than 20 other states won their lawsuit

against the Trump administration's attempt

to shut down infrastructure

and disaster mitigation projects around the country.

Walk us through that lawsuit.

Yeah, that lawsuit was filed by Attorney General Jeff Jackson

along with dozens of other states.

And that was, this is funds that were coming

before Hurricane Helene event

to shore up infrastructure, water plants, sewage plants,

a lot of them which did get damaged in Helene

and now that work needs to be done as well.

But that money is still being held up

just last week, Attorney General Jackson again,

pushed FEMA after a court ruling

to actually distribute the money.

Now, North Carolina isn't the only state experiencing delays

in getting their disaster funds.

In February, the Trump administration said

it was releasing more than $5 billion

and delayed disaster aids to some states,

except for a handful run by Democratic governors.

Those states include California, Illinois, Minnesota,

and Colorado.

Brianna, what did the administration say

about the decision to exclude those states?

Well, the administration has been saying

it's not political for a while.

And we had been seeing that there's been a lot of ties

to the immigration policies and requests

that states such as California have been pushing back on.

And I've also heard internally from FEMA employees

they don't think it's a Democratic versus Republican situation.

And so I think there is some nuance there.

I do agree that it stands out that states where I live,

such as California and I live in Los Angeles.

My dad lost his home in the LA fires

and we are still waiting on a lot of money

that has taken more than a year to get here.

It does raise some eyebrows,

but it does seem to be a little muddled

as to whether it is strictly a blue versus a red situation.

Because last year I did cover the fact

that red states were also not getting money

and the administration has been very slow to release

any really public assistance or hazard mitigation grants,

which are money that help states and communities

build back stronger from disasters.

And those kind of money hasn't really been going

to any state whether it is red or blue.

Coming up, the Department of Homeland Security's

partial shutdown stretches into its second month.

What challenges does that pose

for disaster response and relief?

Stay with us.

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Let's get back into our conversation.

Now, the Department of Homeland Security,

which oversees FEMA, is undergoing big leadership changes.

We'll get to that shortly.

But first, Barry, there are laws that govern how FEMA

typically disperses relief funding.

Explain how that's supposed to work.

Well, when a disaster hit and the president declares

at a federal disaster area,

they work to document the damages, put an estimate on them,

and then provide it's normally a 75-25 cost share

where the federal government picks up 75% of the bill

and state and locals pay the other 25%.

They are not really held to any timeline.

The interesting and unfortunate thing for states

and localities and others schools

that go through this process is,

if FEMA sends you a question,

they give you a 30-day deadline to reply to their question.

And they may take six or nine months

to then get back to you.

So the system needs to be changed.

States need to be given the proper warning

and when these legislations are passed

because you can't just change the rules one day.

Right now, no one knows what's going to happen

with the next disaster.

They don't know where the funding's going to come from

if it's going to come through.

And it's terribly difficult,

once you've managed the event to try and launch recovery

when you don't know what the rules of the game are.

I think for a lot of people,

they think about whether disasters

that have hit the US, their minds go to Hurricane Katrina.

Barry, what changed after that disaster,

that changed the rules a bit

about how this department was supposed to function?

Well, it put limits and minimums on the leadership

and the experience of leadership

that needed to be at that agency,

whether it was at the regional administrator level

or most importantly, the Post-Katrina Act required

that an expert emergency manager be the head of FEMA,

which we have not had during this current administration.

Senator, as you mentioned,

Senator Mullin today is going to be having

his confirmation hearing in the Senate.

So a big question moving forward

is not just his leadership if he gets confirmed,

but rather putting a real emergency manager

in charge of FEMA so that they can work with the states

and do the important work that happens

when unfortunately a disaster's hit.

Well, as you mentioned, President Trump has nominated

Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullin of Oklahoma

to replace Christy Nome.

He faces Senate confirmation,

that confirmation process is underway.

Meanwhile, DHS has also been partially shut down

for more than a month,

and that's has congressional Democrats negotiate

with the White House over changes

to federal immigration enforcement policy.

A DHS has restricted FEMA's disaster work during this shutdown,

even though the agency's disaster relief fund

is a separate pool of money that's not affected

by this shutdown.

But Breonna, how is this partial shutdown of DHS

hampering disaster response work

and holding up relief even more?

Yeah, so we were seeing this across the country,

and I think what I want people to remember

is when you have a disaster that the recovery

is a 10-year-plus process,

and FEMA is involved in that process every year.

And so we have disaster recovery projects,

tens of thousands of them still ongoing

from Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico,

the US Virgin Islands, California.

These just take a long time.

So the partial shutdown for some reason,

they stymied and stopped, slowed down,

a lot of these ongoing disaster projects,

and these disaster workers, again,

are funded by a separate pool of money.

And when this happened as what usually happens

with DHS when it makes a decision,

it was extremely sudden there wasn't really any process

to it.

Disaster workers were caught mid-travel.

They couldn't fly home for funerals,

for their daughters giving birth,

for doctor appointments,

because they weren't allowed to travel

and then that changed the day after.

So it just caused a lot of unnecessary per FEMA employees,

chaos and confusion,

and still to this,

these ongoing disaster recovery projects

in states that cannot pick up the slack,

and just dip into resources to be like,

no worries, if we can't get help from FEMA,

we'll keep going.

And I think that's just really the big problem

we're seeing here is if you just drastically halt

or stop FEMA assistance,

and do not slowly roll that out,

many states and communities don't have the resources,

the rainy day funds,

the emergency management,

infrastructure to just pick up and keep going.

Well, we got this email from Pat who says,

in Vermont, we are still waiting on over 200 buyouts

to be approved by FEMA.

People have been waiting over two years now

to know whether FEMA will approve their buyout,

but with a DHS shutdown, nothing is happening.

The loss of the building resilient infrastructure

and communities program means we cannot be

as resilient against flooding.

We've had major floods for three years in a row

on the same day, July 10th.

The president failed to approve the disaster declaration

for the 2025 storms,

which impact it mostly very small towns.

Flat repairs in these towns often double,

if not triple the size of these towns, annual budget.

Thanks for that message.

Gerard, what's a stick for communities in Western North Carolina?

The longer these critical disaster funds remain in limbo.

Well, again, there's kind of two levels to it.

The local government level,

which are waiting on public assistance grants,

which are these reimbursements that FEMA allocates

to local governments who spend money in the aftermath

of the storm, either clearing debris

or staffing 24, 7 emergency management.

And those grants just have been sporadic to come.

I've talked to a few people who kind of study

how FEMA disperses their money.

And they've called it a magic wand process,

even Senator Ted Bud.

When I asked him about this process,

he said that this disbursement largely relied

on him calling Kristi Nome who he had a relationship with

and asking her and urging her to push out the money.

And then for people, like the gentleman who just emailed,

here in North Carolina, we have about 800 people

who have applied for these buyouts

through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.

And it has to go through state approval first

and then federal approval.

The state has approved about 600 of the 800 applicants.

And they've just been waiting on the federal government

to approve any of them.

I think we've seen a slow trickle,

maybe enough for about 12 properties

throughout Western North Carolina.

But these are people who are out of their homes,

can't live in them because they've been flooded out

and are still paying mortgage on those homes

and renting or staying in temporary housing

while they are still paying a mortgage

on a house they can't live in.

Now you mentioned North Carolina's Republican Senator,

Ted Bud, he announced that federal government

will send the state 11 million dollars

for that Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.

But that's a fraction of the 81 million dollars

and delayed federal aid that's now on its way

to the state for Hurricane Helene Recovery.

Gerard, tell us a bit more about their program

and what that new money specifically will go to.

Well, the Hazard Mitigation Buyouts are complex,

just like almost every other thing that FEMA does.

But people who get flooded out of their homes

and don't want to live in them anymore

because it would cost too much to repair

or because they're now in a flood zone

and it's dangerous to live there,

will apply for a buyout or can apply for a buyout.

And the state has to approve it.

What North Carolina has done is batch a lot of approvals together

and they send those batches to the feds to approve.

Once the federal government approves

some of the money to come out,

it's not directly sent to the state.

It basically gives the state permission

to spend up to that amount of money.

So like you just mentioned recently,

$11 million has come out for it.

That means the state can start the buying out process

of these homes up to $11 million.

And that just looks like a real estate transaction,

which could take, you know, like we've heard years.

I would have happened to your experience here, Barry,

because the process Gerard just described,

I think you used the word Byzantine

to describe the bureaucracy around FEMA.

When you think about your years working with the agency,

what could help streamline some of that bureaucracy

so that disaster recovery process

could happen more quickly for states and communities?

Well, they were terrible disasters

like the North Rejected Quake, the Midwest floods

and other things that happened in the 90s

when I was at FEMA.

And in their defense, you know,

all of the storms in 2017 and 2018 overwhelmed FEMA.

And then of course, every state became a disaster area

with COVID.

And but we need to move with the times,

you know, some of the things in the federal legislation

include block grants, moving the money quicker down

to the state level.

A lot of the complaints about what's happened in the past

are a bit of red herrings.

States do run the disasters

and localities do run the disasters now

with financial help from the federal government,

except for the most catastrophic disasters.

Normally, states are running things now.

So there could be block grants.

There could be ways to get the money quicker.

You could do more on the audit, on the back end,

and have the responsibility be more on the states

from a fiduciary reason.

But things need to move quicker.

I mean, the money that came out a few weeks ago,

the several billion dollars,

we've been told and it's been reported

that there's 14 to 16 billion dollars sitting at DHS.

That's already been approved by FEMA staff and leadership.

It's gone through this whole Byzantine process

and it's ready to go.

We've had rural electrics in North Carolina

whose projects were approved six months ago

who finally got their money two weeks ago.

700 million went to Puerto Rico

and some of the energy projects we work on there.

Schools in North Carolina that we worked with,

all of it was approved last year

and it's been sitting there waiting to be dispersed.

So hopefully the other five to 10 billion

that has been sitting at DHS

can get out into the states and the communities

so progress can happen and rebuilding can move forward.

Well, here's how former DHS Secretary Christy Knome

described FEMA's role in disaster relief.

Emergencies and disasters are always locally executed.

The state manages them

and then the federal government comes in and supports that.

What we are doing here, sir,

is empowering the state and the local officials

to make the best decisions for their people

because they know their people,

they know their community.

And when they ask, then we come in and support them.

So first, Barry, does that align

with your experience of FEMA?

Yes, that is typically and historically

how FEMA has always worked.

They didn't create anything new in the last 12 months

other than trying to destroy it by removing staff

from all the regions,

one of the reasons that the mitigation projects

that you've talked about have not been moving

is they've decimated the staff both at headquarters

and throughout all the regions that work on these projects

and would review those homes being bought out in North Carolina.

And we'll talk more about those layoffs

in just a few moments.

Brianna, meanwhile, several states as you mentioned

have had to dip into their rainy day funds

to pay for disaster-related costs

that FEMA agreed to pay but has not yet delivered.

But these rainy day funds are designed to support states

when they face an unexpected revenue shortfall,

not necessarily pay for these costly recovery efforts.

So what challenges does that present for states,

not just in the short term,

but in the long term as well?

Sure, so most states, you know,

they're required by their own state law,

constitution to balance their budget.

And what we were hearing from communities in North Carolina

last year is they were afraid that their budgets

were going to be totally wrecked by not getting reimbursed

from these public assistance and hazard mitigation grants.

And so when a disaster hits states,

especially those that are rural,

and the state is required to fully take

on the burden of those costs,

these are have to raise revenue,

which is really hard to do,

or divert funds from other sources,

which is also really hard to do.

So likely those projects just won't happen,

those schools won't get fixed,

those hospitals won't go back online.

And you have part of the community that for a long time

for generations might just not recover.

And Michigan, we were seeing this with the ice storms

last year, the president approved a disaster

for public assistance, but didn't include category F,

I believe, which are public utilities.

So that led to electrical companies having to raise their rates

on customers.

And so everything just has this ripple, trickle down effect

when states do not get,

and we're talking like millions of billions of dollars

that they don't have in a rainy day fund.

So if they have to take money from something else,

like again, it's just kind of an impossible feat

for them to overcome when we keep seeing these disasters

getting bigger and bigger.

Well, in Gerard, what are those economic impacts here

in North Carolina that lawmakers are most concerned about?

Yeah, North Carolina is also the only state in the country

without a approved budget yet.

So we are kind of in a double whammy here

when it comes to Helene recovery and what

that looks like in terms of costing the state.

So far, the General Assembly has kicked in about $4.4 billion

in recovery aid.

The governor in the next couple of weeks plans

to ask for just under a billion more dollars.

But the state, what Brianna was talking about

with states having to dip into their rainy day funds,

local counties have had to do that as well.

And for a lot of local governments that are rural,

the storm costs them more than their annual budget.

There are a few counties out here who

spent more than their annual budget cleaning up

after the storm and are waiting on FEMA reimbursements.

The state for their part has kicked in and offered loans

that aren't forgivable to these local governments,

about $150 million.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg

for what these counties and local towns need.

So Gerard, just briefly in a couple of sentences,

what are you watching for?

Is the Senate go through their confirmation hearing

for Senator Mark Wayne Mullin to lead DHS

as the North Carolina continues to wait

for the disaster funds it needs?

Well, like the governor and every elected official here

has said that FEMA just needs to move faster,

get the money out faster to local governments

and to folks waiting for these buyouts.

That's Gerard Albert.

He's the Western North Carolina rural communities reporter

for Blue Bridge Public Radio.

Gerard, thank you.

Thank you.

Brianna sacks with the Washington Post

to sting with us as is Barry Scanlon.

He's a former senior advisor of FEMA

and co-founder of the crisis management

and public safety consulting firm DCMC Partners.

Still to come, President Trump promised to shut down FEMA.

What would it mean for states to bear the brunt

of disaster response and recovery in the long term?

That's just a hat.

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Let's get back to the future of FEMA.

Susan e-mails our small town in New England

was hit by flooding twice in recent years.

Our fire station was near the river

and was declared a loss by the state

due to erosion of the river bank.

FEMA agreed to cover costs of demolition, construction

and assistance building a new station away from the river.

But in the course of the process,

the original FEMA staffers were transferred

and the new staffers denied all funding.

It has taken years of volunteer work to resubmit to FEMA

and get the promised funding back.

If it wasn't for a few key volunteers,

we would have lost the funding for good.

We are grateful for the FEMA help,

but it has been a massive headache.

A last year President Trump said

he intended to phase out FEMA after hurricane season.

I'll also be signing the executive order

to begin the process of fundamentally reforming

an overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA.

I think frankly FEMA is not good.

That I think we're gonna recommend that FEMA go away.

Trump says states and local governments

would assume financial responsibility

for disaster management once the agency is shuttered.

A full elimination of FEMA requires congressional approval,

but the agency could be significantly restructured

by the administration without involving Congress.

Barry, help us understand how and why

the Trump administration is trying to shift

more responsibility for disaster recovery

and response to states.

How and why and I'll know I could speak for them.

A year ago when he did the executive order

creating the FEMA review council,

former governors, former emergency managers,

some current both Texas and Florida

provided their state directors of emergency management

as experts and they had meetings around the country

with different people who have been affected

and different governments affected by disasters.

And they had a report that they provided

the outgoing secretary that she apparently chopped up

and was going to announce in December

and the White House canceled the meeting at the last minute.

So everyone who works in this both in the government

and in the private sector who works on these issues

were waiting to see what that council

and that report is going to come out from the White House.

There's a lot of different things that you could do.

You could like the disaster that was mentioned in Vermont.

Unfortunately, because of all the regulations

and rules that FEMA has created or Congress has created,

often the cost of a disaster is 35% federal administration,

which is obviously way too high.

That's just money that is not needed to fix

and help some of these disaster damages.

You could change the cost share instead of the 75, 25.

It could be 60, 40 and the states have to pay more.

There's a lot of things that you could do

to put more responsibility down on the state

and local governments.

You can't just flip a switch and do it overnight

because those rainy day funds that we've discussed

have to be built up.

There's a lot of issues.

There needs to be an offering if you're going to change

fundamentally how this works.

You mentioned changing the cost share

between the federal government and states.

We got this email from Brett who says,

President Trump wants to make disaster response

more state-driven.

I would think that making states more physically responsible

for disaster response would have a bigger negative impact

on red states than blue states has this been studied.

And Brianna, I'd love to hear your thoughts about that first,

but also more broadly about how well all states are positioned

to respond to whether disasters,

especially if they're facing compounding

whether disasters, so perhaps there is a hurricane

and then there is a flood because we've seen

these weather disasters happening more intensely

but also more closely together.

Definitely.

And it is a complicated issue because I think many people

in the emergency management world agree that states,

there should be less process and recovery should happen

faster and block grants seem like a solid solution

and you also need oversight of those.

So I think it's a long runway here.

And again, the report was supposed to lay out

some nitty gritty of the future of FEMA.

And we're all still waiting for that.

But the truth is, even the best states such as Texas,

Florida, California, and even Louisiana

who are experts at disasters still need

federal help.

So you think of all the other states

that don't have the A, the lived experience

and flooding is now becoming the most common disaster

and they just don't have that emergency management infrastructure.

And if FEMA dwindles and shrinks back quickly

and not over a rolled out period of time,

I think we're just going to see a lot of prolonged devastation

across the country and specifically in red states

because there is all this research that those are the states

that are getting hit harder

and they are seeing compounding disasters with heat

and then flood and ice storms.

And Barry, what does this uncertainty

around the reliability of federal disaster assistance mean

for states as they try to plan and budget for the future

states are facing having to absorb higher Medicaid costs,

higher SNAP costs.

And so it's not just disaster relief and recovery,

they may have to absorb other costs as well

that their budgets just aren't prepared to take.

Well, what happens is it just grinds recovery to a halt

because if states don't know what they can count on,

it's impossible for them to allocate the right amount of funds.

But right now what's happening because of this slowdown

of the last year, over a year,

if you're a contractor,

you're not going to wait around for a locality

to hire you to help them rebuild the school

if you're never going to get your bills paid.

So what we've seen across many,

throughout the Southeast, we see it in Puerto Rico

is the people who would work on doing reconstruction

have moved on to other things, right?

So the whole system sort of grounds to a halt

because if you don't know that your partner FEMA

is going to be there to do their role,

it really just stops the process.

We're hearing from so many of you,

many of you here in North Carolina.

After Hurricane Helene flooded our Asheville apartment,

this comes from Jenny.

The fire department ordered us to evacuate.

What began as a temporary displacement stretched

into months and eventually a permanent relocation.

The trauma of losing our home was only intensified

by the stress of dealing with FEMA.

We were met with a slow, outdated system

that felt out of touch with the reality on the ground.

At one point, we were even asked to fax documents

despite having no power, no internet,

and no way to access 21st century technology.

In the end, the aid we received didn't come close

to meeting our family's needs.

Well, I put this in the context of what's also happening

right now, the federal government,

as a part of an effort to cut federal spending,

a George-slashed FEMA's workforce

in a series of layoffs last year.

The agency has lost more than 2,000 permanent employees

since the start of Trump's second term.

And some of those firings are facing legal challenges,

but Brianna, how are layoffs also complicating

the agency's work?

Yeah, and I ask actually ask some FEMA employees

what they want people to know in their own words.

So I'm just gonna read some responses

from veteran FEMA employees.

Here's what I want people to know.

If you think that FEMA was slow before, it's slower now

because we have lost so many people in our stretch center

than the agency has been in the last 25 years.

And then here's another.

The administration has also pushed out people

who have so much institutional knowledge

that now the people left to lead have little experience.

And this was another, the lack of,

the loss of institutional knowledge

is what many of FEMA employees brought up

and that they're afraid that mistakes might be made

or there's just gonna be this vacuum in leadership

and that has, again, a harmful effect on communities

where they process as we've covered

is already bureaucratic and Byzantine and slow

and needs to be reformed.

So I think most people agree that FEMA could move faster.

It could be more nimble, it could be better.

But coming in with a wrecking ball and firing in mass

and we have reporting on this,

that it did not seem as if the DHS was going through

and saying, okay, this person's not needed.

We have duplicates of this person

because we got documents from officials saying

they sent in justifications as to why

this group of people should stay

and this group of people should stay

and all those people were fired

and they were just fired really quickly.

So it did seem as if the administration

was just taking kind of a wrecking ball to staffing

and not really understanding the ramifications of that

and now the agency, you know,

part of these employees is left really picking up the pieces

in a much thinner and more precarious place

than it has been over since, you know, last 25 years.

Well, Barry, this leads us back to this question

of leadership of DHS, which oversees FEMA.

As we said, Senator Mark Wayne-Mullen of Oklahoma,

he is President Trump's nominee to head DHS.

What do we know about how much experience he has

around disaster recovery and relief?

I haven't seen that he has that much.

Oklahoma, clearly, for years, for 20 years,

actually had the most disaster declarations

because of so many tornadoes and ice storms

and other things that happened over the years.

So I don't know that he has any,

but it's not just having that experience

at the DHS level.

You know, one issue you talk about changes to FEMA,

there were many of us that when DHS was created,

we tried to keep FEMA out of it and keep it independent

and entering directly to the President

and that unfortunately didn't happen.

And that's part of this new act as well

that people, and I believe it, believe that FEMA

would function better reporting directly to the President

and not getting lost in the bureaucracy of DHS.

But most important, you know, as Breonna just said,

it's really the experience throughout the whole ranks.

All of the state emergency management directors

gathered in Washington for their annual meeting last week

and I participated in it.

And one of the biggest things that all of them said

to a person is thank goodness 2025

was not a busy disaster year

because there's no one on the other end of the phone line

to call all of the people that used to run

that the hardest hit areas of the United States

and everyone gets hit now.

But the people were the most experienced at headquarters

and throughout the FEMA regions, most of them are gone.

And the numbers that Breonna and you have mentioned

about FEMA losing and having cut 20% of its staff

over the last year, well, it was understaffed

before all those cuts happened.

So this is something that is now decade long

of them trying to catch up from just the overwhelming

disasters that have happened over the last decade.

We're still hearing from you, Chris E. Mills.

I lived through Hurricane Helene and Milton

because I live in the flood zone evacuation was mandatory.

I had no car.

I was living on a social security check

and a high rise apartment for people aged 55 and older.

I maxed out my credit cards paying for motels,

replacing ruined food, a flooded rug, spoiled cat food,

and on lift rides with zero help from FEMA.

It took me two years to pay off the credit card debt.

I had to put off a surgery for my cat in 2024

because of the credit card debt from the hurricanes.

There was absolutely zero help for victims

of these natural disasters.

And Logan and Ohio e-mails this,

I understand the need for disaster recovery.

However, I'm unclear as to why folks expect FEMA

to financially provide for their personal losses,

such as homes.

Doesn't homeowners insurance take care of these scenarios?

FEMA should focus on public areas of needs,

such as roadways and utilities.

And I'd love to hear your perspective on that, Barry,

and just quickly note that when we're talking

about these weather disasters,

not everyone who loses their home is a home owner.

There are lots of renters who also have to navigate recovery.

But what's your response to this thought

that maybe this isn't FEMA's role at all?

Well, it's been a misconception the whole time

I've ever worked in this that I'll tell you,

once you visit disasters and work on disasters,

you don't have to be too many to find out

that disaster victims don't really get that much.

The programs aren't designed that way.

They're designed to try and help people get,

be safe, sound, and secure is the phrase.

So there's not piles of cash going out to individuals.

And part of what these reforms are talking about

is also just make it simpler for disaster survivors.

They're not having to call HUD, NSBA, and FEMA.

Try and have it be a one-stop shop.

So people don't deal with bureaucracy on a personal level.

So it's really not that much that helps disaster victims.

They're really much left to their own devices, frankly.

And is there a place,

do you think for state and local governments,

to take on more responsibility in managing disasters?

As perhaps an incentive to try to keep recovery costs low

or to maybe focus more on mitigation efforts?

Well, they could pay for some of the individual assistance,

and they already do.

Again, there is a cost share.

So this misconception, this red hearing,

that somehow this is a whole new idea

that states are going to manage disasters.

Governor Stein and North Carolina have to manage the disaster.

FEMA is just, in many respects,

except for the most catastrophic disasters,

is a reimbursement agency.

It's a bank.

So there is some guidance, and there is some oversight,

but disasters are run by the states.

So it's really something that they need to be

the steady partner that they have always been.

And if they need to be improved, that should happen.

But it's really a bit of a misconception

that somehow states have to take on more responsibility.

They've been doing it already.

Well, Brianna, we're heading into spring,

deeper into the tornado and wildfire seasons.

What are you watching for, especially as we wait to see

if the Senate will confirm Mark Wayne Mullen to head up DHS?

I think I'm watching for what the future of FEMA

in terms of leadership is going to look like.

Are they going to put in an administrator

who has emergency and management experience

as they are required to?

By law, are they going to continue

to let Karen Evans lead?

Are they going to rescind this $100,000 memo?

Fire seasons already here, the planes,

and Nebraska, and they're having massive blazes already.

So I think it's going to be a really active fire season

and just hoping that the agency can pull out of this

just in time for that.

Well, that's Brianna Sacks.

She's a disaster correspondent at the Washington Post.

Also with us today, Barry Scanlon.

He's a former senior advisor

of the Federal Emergency Management Agency

and co-founder of the Crisis Management

and Public Safety Consulting firm, DCMC Partners.

Thanks to you both.

Today's producer was Lauren Hamilton

with help from Haley Blassingame.

We're broadcasting today's program

from WFDD in Winston, Salem, North Carolina

as part of the station's 80th anniversary

and special thanks to the WFDD staff

who've helped make this happen including George Newman,

Lauren McCroskey, and Tom Dullin-Mayer.

This program comes to you from WAMU,

part of American University in Washington,

distributed by NPR.

I'm Jen White, thanks for listening

and we'll talk more soon.

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