Washington (AP) – The Bund’s disaster aid is almost everywhere. About 94% of Americans live in a district that has received the federal emergency management agency for disasters since 2011.
But disaster relief – for decades there has been a most part -partially non -partisan edition – suddenly a political heated button after hurricane Helene last year and this year’s California forest fires. President Donald Trump and a conservative think tank have led the opportunity to shift the disaster reaction to the states, including the removal of the FEMA or the restriction of the federal government.
Experts are worried about it.
“Most states don’t even have the ability to manage these disasters, including Floridas,” said Craig Fugate without federal money and support. Fugate was an emergency manager in Florida, head of the State of Florida disaster office under a Republican governor and director of Fema under President Barack Obama.
Most states just don’t have enough money to deal with great disasters, said Susan Cutter, director of the director of the University of South Carolina of the Hazard vulnerabilities & Resilience Institute.
“You will suffer because you have no capacities to deal with it without federal aid.”
Experts say every state receives millions in federal aid – and a little more goes to Republican states and congress districts.
The reconstruction of New York University through design, a non -profit organization that focuses on disaster prevention, created one Atlas of the 795 non-medical and non-technological federal disaster since 2011, which they described as climate disasters. It found that every state and everyone was helped to a few hundred counties.
“It is clear that the climate is not a red or blue challenge,” said Amy Chester, the creator of Atlas and the reconstruction of the director of design. “Communities suffer whether they are a red state or a blue condition.”
Since 2011, more than 68.2 billion US dollars have been spent on Fema support for disasters that do not contain pandemic or oil spill. And these are payments only for governments, not to people. Ten billion more came – mainly from living space and urban development – for people who need individual support to reconcile.
States with Republican governors or two Republican senators tend to have more disasters and receive a little more money per person than states with democratic governors and senators.
States that have now received Republican governors an average of 222 US dollars per person in Fema aid, with 475 states being explained by the states in 27 states. The 23 countries with democratic governors an average of 15% less with $ 193 per person over 320 disasters.
The six swing states that voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and Donald Trump in 2024 -and states with shared US Senate Delegations -receive significantly fewer Fema support per person, which is only $ 35 per capit. These purple states have 15% of the country’s population, but only receive 2.5% of the Fema support.
In total, states who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 had less than their share.
Red states with 42.7% of the population have 56.6% of the number of physically explained disasters and receive half of the Fema support. Blue states with 42.2% of the population and 35.8% of the number of disasters receive 47.5% of the Fema aid.
The disaster-heavy one says that the former Fema boss Fugate calls his “frequent leaflets”, also tend to be more republica. About two thirds of the top 15 countries in the entire FEMA fund, Fema editions per person and number of disasters declared by the state are Republicans. These include Florida, Louisiana, Alaska, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Mississippi.
Twelve congress districts have shown at least a dozen disasters issued by the state since 2011. Republicans represent three quarters of them. These are in Kentucky, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas, Vermont and West Virginia.
Disaster aid and explanations are “less politically than 40 years ago, 30 years ago,” said South Carolinas Cutter.
The first thing that has to happen in a catastrophe is that the state has to ask the president to explain it as a federal disaster that lets the money flow, Fugate said.
In general, the federal government pays 75% of the costs, with the state and locals picking up 25%. With the greatest disasters, however, the state proportion can shrink to 10% or even almost nothing, especially if the congress occurs.
In the event of disasters, the government calculations are quickly increasing. For this reason, states can create a severe salary billing, and there the Fema can support early with the first payments within 30 days.
And the Fema simply has special specialist knowledge. In California, for example, the forest fires of the state mean tons of ruins – a immense part of it, Fugate said. Fema can ask the US Army Corp of Engineers – experts who have clarified the World Trade Center debris – to take responsibility and make it faster and cheaper for taxpayers.
Experts also fear that the states have difficulties to stop waste, fraud and abuse that are currently tougher with the FEMA due to the federal procurement laws.
“When Charlotte County (Florida) was flattened in Hurricane Charley (in 2004), you as taxpayers rebuilt all of our fire stations. They rebuilt our schools, ”said Fugate.
The state couldn’t have done it alone, he said.
