Trump wants to get rid of FEMA. The future of disaster relief would be grim
In an executive order Monday, President Donald Trump demanded a “full-scale review” of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and requested a report proposing “structural changes” within the next 180 days. The move comes after he made repeated calls for “getting rid of” the nation’s backstop against natural disasters during his first few days as president.
“FEMA has turned out to be a disaster,” Trump said in North Carolina on Friday while on a multistate tour to areas still recovering from the effects of last year’s Hurricane Helene and the ongoing wildfires near Los Angeles. “I think we recommend that FEMA go away.”
Inside the agency, FEMA’s staff is bracing for the worst.
“We all got PTSD here in Puerto Rico the first time around. [We’re] just praying we don’t get so much as a bad rain in the next four years,” says Denise, a FEMA employee who requested to be identified only by her middle name. “I was expecting BS, but not this fast.”
FEMA was established in 1979 in its current form, but traces its roots back to 1803 with congressional authorization of aid to the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, following a severe fire that threatened the national economy. Today, FEMA aid is available only after local jurisdictions have depleted their own ability to respond to an emergency and specifically request it. Even then, the request must be approved by Congress.
FEMA is currently managing the response and recovery for at least 192 disaster declarations—including fires, floods, landslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, and winter storms. In 2023, FEMA’s budget totaled nearly $30 billion, including activities in every state, tribal entity, and Puerto Rico.
Trump’s moves to limit FEMA’s scope appear to be rooted in political retribution. His executive order alleges FEMA staff have selectively administered hurricane aid based on political affiliation—a false rumor that the president himself helped spread during the Helene aftermath, and which the agency has worked hard to debunk. That same allegation resulted in multiple physical threats to FEMA workers last year in North Carolina and Tennessee. The chairman of the Republican National Committee was one of the first people named as a member of the FEMA review panel that Trump tasked with deciding the agency’s future.
Routing FEMA funds directly through the White House, as Trump suggested over the weekend, would further politicize federal disaster aid, especially since states that historically have received the most FEMA funds are those along the Gulf Coast that supported him in the last election.
Trump has also threatened conditioning federal wildfire aid to California on the state passing more restrictive voter ID laws. Moves like this are unheard of in recent U.S. history, and have prompted bipartisan anger in response. “California has given more to the recovery of other states than any other state in the union,” said Democratic Senator Adam Schiff. “You do not want to go down this road.”
Shifting to the states
While on his trips to North Carolina and California last week, Trump speculated that he could ultimately abolish FEMA entirely and turn disaster management directly over to the states, which would then be able to delegate response and recovery efforts to nonprofits.
According to an analysis by Samantha Montano, an emergency management professor at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, this would result in “a less effective, less efficient, and less equitable emergency management system, which means it makes all of us less safe. Without question, we would see higher death tolls, greater physical damage, and immense economic impacts.”
Even if Trump and Congress maintain current levels of federal disaster aid, without FEMA states wouldn’t have adequate infrastructure to administer that aid to affected households. Multistate disasters—like most hurricanes—would likely have a haphazard response without FEMA’s coordination and could completely overwhelm small states, territories, and tribal nations.
Emergency management experts consulted by Fast Company said a diminished federally coordinated disaster response would compound the growing risks that Americans already face from climate change. Even adjusting for inflation, the annual number of billion-dollar disasters in the United States has doubled in just the past 10 years. That will continue to grow for the foreseeable future as rising temperatures fuel stronger storms.
Withholding federal aid “could deal a crushing blow to any area that has suffered a severe disaster,” says Edie Schaffer, a retired emergency planning manager for the city and county of San Francisco. “It would also prolong recovery, which in some instances could have consequences far beyond the area where the disaster occurred.”
A case in point: Reporting from the Tampa Bay Times indicates that the twin 2024 hurricane disasters of Helene and Milton generated $247 million of additional expenses for debris collection and disposal in the St. Petersburg area alone—about 30% of the city’s annual operating budget. FEMA has already committed to covering $200 million of those expenses, but reimbursements could now be delayed.
“A state or local area left to address the impacts of disasters alone would likely have to shift funding from other projects to help with response and recovery efforts,” says Schaffer, noting that as a last resort, cities and states may need to turn to selling bonds to cover any expense shortfalls.
Trump and FEMA
The interim FEMA administrator, Cameron Hamilton, is a former Navy SEAL with no previous disaster management experience, but he is a Trump loyalist—a further sign that the president is likely to politicize federal disaster response in his second term.
Aside from the COVID-19 pandemic, the botched federal response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017 was one of Trump’s largest first-term failures, according to emergency response experts.
Studies show that Maria’s impact was worsened by the slow response. A Biden-era report issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that the initial aid package to Puerto Rico was 16 times smaller than aid to Texas after Hurricane Harvey—which happened a few weeks before Maria. A 2018 report from George Washington University found that delays in disaster response likely elevated mortality rates in Puerto Rico after Maria.
There’s also evidence that a similar effect happened in North Carolina during Trump’s first term, with Hurricanes Matthew and Florence. In both cases, bureaucratic delays in federal aid made subsequent disasters worse. While in office, Trump accused George Washington University researchers of being part of a ploy by Democrats to make him “look as bad as possible,” and he repeatedly falsely inflated the amount of aid he had distributed to Puerto Rico.
A deeper issue is that FEMA also coordinates with states and local governments on disaster prevention and works to maintain and update planning documents for dozens of disaster types—from hazmat spills to nuclear war—that use the best available science. Should that work also be curtailed, it would greatly magnify the burden of future disasters. A report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that every dollar invested in disaster prevention yields $13 of avoided damages and improved economic activity.
“If the U.S. fixed its infrastructure, building codes, and [addressed] climate change, [FEMA] might not be as necessary,” says Denise. “A lot of us who [do] work facing the public are survivors from previous large disasters who were hired to work locally and then stayed at the agency.”
Fortunately, a potential FEMA backup is already in place should Trump ultimately disband or dramatically downsize the agency. The Emergency Management Assistance Compact is a nationwide mutual aid agreement among all 50 states and territories that was formed in 1996. California Governor Gavin Newsom used the agreement to send response staff to Florida even before Hurricane Helene made landfall there. Cooperation among states won’t free up any federal funding, but could help reduce the chances that any one state gets overwhelmed.
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