this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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177
Trump signs order to shift disaster preparations from FEMA to state and local governments (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 day ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
45 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Summary

Trump signed an executive order shifting disaster preparedness responsibility from FEMA to state and local governments.

The order calls for reviewing infrastructure policies, creating a National Risk Register, and prioritizing state-led risk reduction.

Critics warn this weakens U.S. disaster readiness, noting Trump’s administration has cut 1,000 FEMA staff and withheld funds from state projects.

Experts fear the order forces states to make costly infrastructure investments without clear federal support, leaving communities more vulnerable to disasters like wildfires and hurricanes.

top 45 comments
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[–] buzz86us@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

Wow this is brain damage.. So he is going to ruin already strained state and local government budgets. i guess residents can look forward to higher property taxes while corporate interests are allowed to pollute the air without abandon.

Y'all get what you voted for. Trump is really lowering prices for average Americans 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 13 points 19 hours ago

This traitor is doing more damage to America than any of our enemies ever could.

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 21 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Okay, then can we stop paying taxes in California? We send far, far, FAR more money to the Feds than we receive. We're paying for all kinds of other states. So if we're footing the bill for things like disasters, why the fuck are we still paying the Feds?

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 4 points 19 hours ago

Bingo.

The dipshit can send troops to attack California if we stop. See how Americans like a president who wages war on our own country. Especially since 1 in 8 Americans IS Californian.

We've got plenty of our own money. We don't need the feds. Especially if we stop giving so much to red welfare states.

[–] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 0 points 14 hours ago

California is net neutral. Whether it's a giver or taker state depends on the year and the exact criteria used, but it's never very far from even.

That said, sister relief is an area that California gets the shaft.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 30 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Ok

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I don't think the title makes any sense. "Shift disaster prep to states". It already is. FEMA as a federal entity cannot do anything on state property without direct assignment by the state. The states tell FEMA where when and what to do when there is an emergency. This is why Puerto Rico not having a proper plan set up was such a failure during Hurricane Maria. FEMA brought supplies, landed on airstrip. Had no legal rights to disperse any of it, and it sat for weeks. Pallets of water were on the side of the runway for a year while people had no access to clean water. I've been saying this for a long time, Florida has a great hurricane readiness plan. Every state should copy paste it and update it to fit it to their needs. Everything from building codes to dispersal is all put together to ensure quick efficient responses. It wasn't long ago that Florida was a purple state with the Highest ranked Universities in the country. It's just diminishing quickly

[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 8 points 22 hours ago

I’ve spent a good deal of time in disasters that weren’t my marriage, and I think the concern here is that FEMA is the payer and coordinator of the federal response.

Let’s take a sexy part of that topic; helicopter rescue and transport in hurricanes. FEMA has a list of providers ready to shift resources, contracts in place, prep teams, and on declaration of an emergency, can authorize payment for resources to begin moving and staging out of a hurricane’s path, gassed and ready to move in. Helicopters are expensive, and it takes the promise of federal reimbursement to move them.

Now something less sexy and more important; water and food. FEMA has contracts in place with set rates for purchase, transportation, and distribution (including personnel) for these resources. Again, while all the helicopter crews are doing their little dances that they get paid to go look cool, these private contractors are gearing up to position out of the storm path, go to designated staging areas once the storm passes, and await direction. This is coordinated with the state response by the FEMA disaster office in Colorado (after Katrina we realized putting response commands in the storm path wasn’t the best idea).

FEMA’s job is to move massive amounts of resources to an area to mitigate the overwhelming of local resources. Shifting this coordination to a state level doesn’t make sense, unless every state carbon copies what FEMA already does, and puts all these contacts in place. I find this a bad idea, because the power of being a single payer with the purse meant the federal government sets the price, like with medicaid. I see this resulting with more frequently hit states (like florida) paying more for resources by contract, because they are calling for limited resources often, they need them, and they are now competing with, say Texas, who might also want helicopter in their response. Also this creates the specter of “what if there are two disaster at the same time?” Before, FEMA would divide the resources as best available. With the change, the free market would determine who gets the bottled water first.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago

Neat, thanks for this

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago

I was about to say, don't mind if I do.

Let them burn

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

4 states haven't needed any FEMA money since 2015? Wow.

Edit: Oh wait more in the tiny ones on the east coast as well.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 5 points 23 hours ago

As someone who lives in one of those tiny states, I believe it. We don't have many natural disasters here; the last one was the ice storm of '08.

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 50 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I know this goes without saying, and applies to many Trump actions, but people will die because of this.

People will die.

[–] riskable@programming.dev 2 points 15 hours ago

Also, the most people will die in red states.

Take of that knowledge what you will.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

People would also die if he left things as they are, since he's systematically dismantling the federal government.

[–] frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 39 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Time to find out how fiscal conservatism handles multiple billion dollar disasters in a year without a willingness to fund for them. Guarantee rich white people will get priority disaster recovery and everyone else gets the Superdome treatment.

[–] Thrashy@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

everyone else gets the Superdome treatment.

Which is perfect, because that's what all the Gulf states are gonna use their devolved FEMA funds to build!

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

Time to find out how fiscal conservatism handles multiple billion dollar disasters in a year without a willingness to fund for them.

The correlation between Red states and much higher natural disaster incidence is really high. This is gonna go really bad, by design.

[–] RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So what happens when FL goes through its chunk of the FEMA budget?

[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 7 points 22 hours ago

They think and they pray.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 8 points 23 hours ago

Ah, unfunded mandates. Republican states used to call the government overreach. Wonder how they work now?

[–] tal@lemmy.today 21 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I'm skeptical that this is a good idea. Disasters happen infrequently. If you have one federal agency, you can move it around to deal with whatever is at issue. If you do it at state level, you need to replicate that so that any given state can have emergency management capability. That's probably wasteful, because you don't expect to have a concurrent emergency in all 50 states.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 11 points 1 day ago

Trump said he thought he could shut the White House pandemic office and rehire the staff as needed.

Actually, he wanted to fire the admiral in charge of the office because the admiral was friends with Gen. Miley who Trump hated.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

If you have one federal agency, you can move it around to deal with whatever is at issue.

Consolidation itself brings funding benefits too.

Remember during covid when states were fighting with hospitals, who were fighting other hospitals and other states, for PPE? When it got scarce, fucking surgical masks needed an armed escort and seemingly disappeared from dockyards anyway. This will be your water, your fuel, your air support during the next katrina or paradise fire or Kentucky flood like this year, because agencies will be fighting to keep contracts by scarce providers selling to the highest bidder -- all managed by first-timer contractors hired FOR an event but let go in the intervening 3 years.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This is a good idea BECAUSE the current federal government is thoroughly corrupt and inept. He accidentally did the right thing. Really, it's an official endorsement for the Balkanization of the US.

[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 10 points 1 day ago

Such a great time to be a grifter.

[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 14 points 1 day ago

leopard adjusts his bib

[–] protist@mander.xyz 7 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I live in Texas, and I recognize we would probably be able to handle our own disaster response, given our size, economic heft, and functioning government (this last one is arguable, but in general Texas is pretty good about keeping the things they want working).

I used to live in Louisiana, which would be totally fucked under this plan. They have no hope whatsoever to take care of themselves.

[–] moody 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I live in Texas, and I recognize we would probably be able to handle our own disaster response

The state that famously shuts down when it snows?

[–] protist@mander.xyz 2 points 21 hours ago

Pretty much everywhere that rarely gets snow shuts down when it snows. A lot safer to shut down for a couple days than to expect everyone who has no experience driving in winter weather go about their days

[–] astutemural@midwest.social 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

[–] protist@mander.xyz 2 points 21 hours ago

Basically a map of the most hurricane-impacted areas

[–] teft@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How’s your power grid?

[–] protist@mander.xyz -1 points 21 hours ago

Fully functional? Lol

[–] frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The state enjoys fucking over Houston/Harris County whenever possible though, including a decision to give $1 billion in Harvey recovery money to more conservative counties surrounding Harris even though Harris had way more people affected. There's also widespread state-enforced ignorance of the industrial pollution and preventable industrial accidents around here.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

No argument here. Hello from Travis County, where we get similar treatment

[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I would like to remind you of your state’s dependance on The Cajun Navy in disasters.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

We certainly appreciate the help! But "dependent" might not be an accurate description

[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

So you don’t live south of austin, neat.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Are you talking about the Harvey response? I'm genuinely not sure. I'm from Louisiana, btw, solidly Cajun here. I lived in Houston over a decade after that. In no way trying to disrespect anyone