As hurricane season starts, Trump is making sure you won't get FEMA help | Opinion
The gutting and defunding of FEMA is one of the many bits of collateral damage in the Trump administration’s dogged efforts to heap tax-savings windfalls on the very rich.
Fingers crossed, Florida. We are going to need some luck this hurricane season because we’re about to get screwed like never before.
I don’t know where the storms will go, but I’m pretty sure the federal umbrella of help we’ve always relied on will be in tatters.
That’s because the gutting and defunding of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is one of the many bits of collateral damage to the Trump administration’s dogged efforts to heap tax-savings windfalls on the very rich.
Trump administration has made it clear it wants FEMA gone
In case you haven’t been paying attention, Cameron Hamilton, the acting FEMA administrator, was fired recently for saying, “I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
That shouldn’t be a controversial statement. But it was, considering that President Donald Trump has said, “I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA goes away.”
Hamilton, a vocal advocate of FEMA, was replaced by David Richardson, a Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for countering weapons of mass destruction ‒ a guy with no experience managing natural disasters.
Richardson is, however, a reliable Trump loyalist. He announced at an all-hands meeting on his first day as the FEMA administrator that he would “run right over” anyone who stood in the way of Trump’s plans for the agency.
So far, those plans have resulted in a 30% reduction in staff and billions of dollars in cuts to programs aimed at supporting states hit hard by natural disasters.
Kristi Noem wants to abandon states during disasters
Meanwhile, a new review council chaired by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been empaneled to promote a mindset of self-reliance for the states from FEMA.
“I believe this agency needs to be renamed,” Noem said during the council’s first meeting this month.
I’ve got an idea. FEMA: “Forsaking Everyone Malevolently Abandoned.”
The Trumping of FEMA would be especially terrible for Florida. As much as Gov. Ron DeSantis likes to pretend that we here in Florida don’t need FEMA for hurricane relief, we really do.
The off-season political posturing of go-it-alone Florida disappears once the wind starts blowing.
Where does Gov. DeSantis stand as Florida braces?
For a taste of that, here’s DeSantis talking about coordinating federal help from the Biden administration as Hurricane Milton was sweeping through the state in October 2024.
“I’ve worked well with the administration,” DeSantis said during the CNBC interview. “The president has approved our requests. We’re going to be sending post-landfall major disaster declaration requests. I think that’s going to be approved. We leverage whatever resources that are available to us to be able to help our people get through this.”
From 2015 to 2024, Floridians received more FEMA assistance ($2.5 billion) than the citizens of any other state.
In 2024, 49 states plus Puerto Rico received FEMA aid after natural disasters. The half-baked idea of phasing out FEMA is something that will be felt everywhere, not just in Florida.
U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who was Florida’s emergency management director before he was elected to Congress, told his colleagues recently that hurricanes along the Gulf Coast would have catastrophic financial repercussions on the Trump-voting states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama without FEMA.
“Those states go bankrupt without FEMA,” Moskowitz said. “And yet, I don’t see my Republican colleagues calling out the administration on how we’re going to save FEMA and reform it.”
Like I said, fingers crossed, Florida.
As we enter the hurricane season, the best we can do is hope that Mother Nature spares us from Father Numbskull.
Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, which is part of the Paste BN Florida Network and where this column originally appeared. He can be reached at fcerabino@gannett.com