Newly-analyzed data has shown a “concerning pattern” in how President Donald Trump’s administration reacts to emergencies, with one expert calling it a “new era of erratic disaster response.”
“Unfortunately for those of us who live in disaster-prone places that might need (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) this hurricane season, the administration is showing a concerning pattern in how it’s deciding on governors’ requests for FEMA help,” wrote Sarah Labowitz, a senior fellow in the Sustainability, Climate and Geopolitics Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a Washington Post op-ed published Wednesday.
“The data shows batches of requests that build up over weeks, then get approved (or denied) all at once, with much higher than normal numbers of open requests sitting on FEMA’s desk.”
Labowitz said that the federal response to the deadly Central Texas floods that killed at least 135 people, which saw search and rescue operations delayed by three days due to new rules under the Trump administration, was actually “the exception,” and that many disaster responses are delayed by as much as several weeks.
In her analysis of disaster data, Labowitz points to the federal response to the tornado that struck St. Louis, Missouri in May, the deadliest tornado in the state in decades that killed five people and caused well over $1.5 billion in damage.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe made two requests to FEMA, one on May 19 and another on May 25 for federal disaster assistance, only to have one request denied on June 9, and the other approved the same day, leaving local officials to fend for themselves for three weeks.
“Our cities aren’t equipped to deal with thousands of displaced people overnight,” St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer told Labowitz. “That’s what we were expecting [FEMA] to help with.”
The delay also led to Missourians unable to apply for the federal “Serious Needs Assistance” financial support from FEMA for three weeks, which supplies $770 to disaster victims for emergency expenditures like food and shelter.
More broadly, Labowits’ analysis of federal disaster response data showed the “erratic” trend of states’ disaster assistance requests remaining in limbo for far longer than under previous administrations.
“This year, in the two-week period before hurricane season started on June 1, the average number of open requests from governors was 13, compared to an average of four for the last nine years,” Labowitz wrote. “That pattern has continued since the start of hurricane season.”