What The Future Holds For FEMA In North Carolina

0:00This message comes from Charles Schwab with their original podcast, Choiceology. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind people's decisions. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash podcast. Hi, it's Jen. Before we get into today's show on FEMA, a quick update on the U.S.-Israel war in Iran. On Wednesday, Israel says it killed Iran's intelligence minister, Ismail Khatib. Iran's president confirmed Khatib's assassination, saying it was, quote, cowardly. The killing follows the death of Ali Larajani, Iran's top security official. He died in an Israeli attack on Tuesday.

0:39Meanwhile, Israel is ramping up attacks in Beirut against the Tehran-backed militia group Hezbollah. We'll have more for you during the Friday News Roundup. And stay tuned to your local NPR station and NPR.org for the latest.

0:58This morning, a monster storm unleashing its fury overnight on Florida's Gulf Coast. Hurricane Helene, a catastrophic Category 4, showing no mercy. destroying property, flooding hotel lobbies, businesses, and homes. To the west now, where the Gifford Fire burning through the rugged backcountry of California's central coast is now the state's largest wildfire of the year. It reached so-called mega fire status. In fact, it's one of 38 large fires burning right now across nine states. Heavy snow pummeling parts of the Midwest. In Minnesota, this powerful storm system leading to icy roads and reduced visibility.

1:35The state slammed with more than two feet. Across Oklahoma's panhandle, an urgent rush to escape the flames as five fires have burned more than 150 ,000 acres across the region. Wildfires, flooding and hurricanes, just a few of the weather disasters we grapple with every year throughout the U.S. As extreme weather events grow more frequent and costly, the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is more important than ever. Kristi Noem is out at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA. That means the agency will soon have a new leader managing disaster response and recovery in the U.S.

2:13And that's big news for states like North Carolina, where people are still recovering from Hurricane Helene. Federal funds have been slow to roll out. So what does the future of FEMA hold as the agency sorts through a backlog of billions of dollars in federal disaster relief funding? And what does it all mean for states like North Carolina that have had to bear the burden of disaster-related costs as their communities try to recover? I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast. We'll be back to tackle those questions and more after this short break. Stay with us.

2:47This message comes from Grainger. Grainger knows that as an HVAC technician, you and your digital multimeter are in high demand. So when a noisy office HVAC turns out to be a failing blower motor, you don't break a sweat. With Grainger's easy-to-use website and product information, you can select the product you need to keep everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. Welcome back, and let's get right into our conversation about FEMA and how disaster response and recovery in the U.S. will be managed in the future.

3:24Joining us from Los Angeles is Brianna Sachs. She's a disaster correspondent at The Washington Post. Brianna, welcome back to the program. Thanks so much for having me back. Joining us from WAMU in Washington is Barry Scanlon. He's a former senior advisor of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He's also the president and co-founder of DCMC Partners. That's a crisis management and public safety consulting firm that helps with recovery from crises and disasters. Barry, it's always great to have you. Thank you, Jen. And joining us from Asheville is Gerard Albert. He's the Western North Carolina rural communities reporter for Blue Ridge Public Radio.

4:01Gerard, thanks for joining us. Happy to be here. So in 2024, Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina hard, especially counties along the western part of the state. Gerard, where do recovery efforts stand a year and a half after that storm? Well, big picture wise, the storm caused$60 billion in damage. And so far, only$7 billion, give or take, have been allocated from the federal government. On a more on the ground level, there are still hundreds of people living in RVs and trailers and temporary housing, waiting on home repairs. There are still many local governments who are waiting on dozens of millions of dollars in FEMA reimbursements after clearing debris in the immediacy after the storm.

4:55So, as you say, North Carolina requested federal funds to cover around half of the estimated$60 billion in damage the storm caused. State officials say, look, we've received about 10 percent of that money. Federal officials say they've given North Carolina at least$1 billion for recovery efforts. Brianna, what's the disconnect between what state leaders are saying and what the government is saying? Yeah, we, that's a great question. The DHS has been holding up hundreds of millions of pre-approved funds for North Carolina for months now. I think we did a deep dive into this last August, and we also looked at data that showed that they had given more money to Tennessee and Florida for Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton than North Carolina.

5:49And so that is the overwhelming question. DHS says it's pushing out money faster than any other administration. But again, we keep seeing states like North Carolina and communities on the ground just not getting that money quickly. And it's just been a lot of frustrating back and forth from state officials, such as Governor Josh Stein having to send all these letters to Nome. And the contract, the$100 ,000 contract process has held up a lot of money over the last, I guess, like nine, 10 months now since it was instituted last summer. And what you're talking about there is now former head of DHS, Kristi Noem's decision to have anything$100 ,000 or more approved by her office, correct?

6:40Yes, the ramifications of that decision are still being seen and we probably don't know. But I have just been talking to FEMA employees across the agency for a long time and even DHS officials who have been saying that this just caused massive chaos and backlog and have prevented states such as North Carolina from getting money that, again, like FEMA moves slowly and is already bureaucratic. Craddock, this procedure, as well as others instituted by the former DHS secretary, really just caused a pretty serious holdup and slowdown of disaster release funds. Well, Barry, give us some context. Historically, what role has FEMA played in providing funding before, during, and after disasters like Hurricane Helene?

7:30Well, there's always been money for planning, training, exercises, and for mitigation works, making bridges stronger, protecting schools from the next storm. But the large amount of money, the vast majority of money, is always in disaster recovery. And FEMA's process is Byzantine, and it is long, and it needs to be improved and fixed. And there's a bill in the House that's passed the Transportation Infrastructure Committee to do that. And hopefully that will move forward and simplify some of these processes. But as has been mentioned, normally you would go to a school, document the damages, and then work with FEMA to come up with a number, and then it gets to Washington.

8:10And it takes about a week or 10 days to get through what we call the million-dollar queue. And that queue has now taken six months, nine months, 12 months, given the past secretary. And all that does is delay children from getting back into school, hospitals from fixing an emergency room, a whole host of things that you can think of in public infrastructure that impact real people's lives every day. Now, Gerard, we spoke briefly about the difficulty North Carolina has faced in securing the funds they need for relief from Hurricane Helene. Now, the federal government granted$116 million in disaster relief funding to the state for recovery and to prevent future disaster damage across the state.

8:54But that money came a month after North Carolina and more than 20 other states won their lawsuit against the Trump administration's attempt to shut down infrastructure and disaster mitigation projects around the country. Walk us through that lawsuit. Yeah, that lawsuit was filed by our Attorney General Jeff Jackson, along with dozens of other states. And this is funds that were coming before Hurricane Helene even to shore up infrastructure, water plants, sewage plants, a lot of them which did get damaged in Helene, and now that work needs to be done as well. But that money is still being held up.

9:32Just last week, Attorney General Jackson again pushed FEMA after a court ruling to actually, you know, distribute the money. Now, North Carolina isn't the only state experiencing delays in getting their disaster funds. In February, the Trump administration said it was releasing more than $5 billion and delayed disaster aids to some states, except for a handful run by Democratic governors. Those states include California, Illinois, Minnesota, and Colorado. Brianna, what did the administration say about the decision to exclude those states? Well, the administration has been saying it's not political for a while.

10:15And we had been seeing that there's been a lot of ties for their immigration policies and requests that states such as California have been pushing back on. And I've also heard internally from FEMA employees, they don't think it's a Democratic versus Republican situation. So I think there is some nuance there. I do agree that it stands out that states where I live, such as California, and I live in Los Angeles. My dad lost his home in the LA fires, and we are still waiting on a lot of money that has taken more than a year to get here. It does raise some eyebrows, but it does seem to be a little muddled as to whether it is strictly a blue versus a red situation, because last year I did cover the fact that red states were also not getting money, and the administration has been very slow to release any really public assistance or hazard mitigation grants, which are money that help states and communities build back stronger from disasters.

11:18And that kind of money hasn't really been going to any state, whether it is red or blue. Coming up, the Department of Homeland Security's partial shutdown stretches into its second month. What challenges does that pose for disaster response and relief? Stay with us.

11:39This message comes from Grainger. Grainger knows that as an HVAC technician, you and your digital multimeter are in high demand. So when a noisy office HVAC turns out to be a failing blower motor, you don't break a sweat. With Grainger's easy-to-use website and product information, you can select the product you need to keep everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. Let's get back into our conversation. Now, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, is undergoing big leadership changes. We'll get to that shortly.

12:17But first, Barry, there are laws that govern how FEMA typically disperses relief funding. Explain how that's supposed to work. Well, when a disaster hits and the president declares it a federal disaster area, They work to document the damages, put an estimate on them, and then provide, it's normally a 75-25 cost share, where the federal government picks up 75 % of the bill and state and locals pay the other 25%. They are not really held to any timeline. The interesting and unfortunate thing for states and localities and others, schools that go through this process is, if FEMA sends you a question, they give you a 30-day deadline to reply to their question.

12:58and they may take six or nine months to then get back to you. So the system needs to be changed. States need to be given the proper warning and when these legislations are passed, because you can't just change the rules one day. Right now, no one knows what's going to happen with the next disaster. They don't know where the funding is going to come from, if it's going to come through. And it's terribly difficult once you've managed the event to try and launch recovery when you don't know what the rules of the game are. I think for a lot of people, when they think about weather disasters that have hit the U.S., their minds go to Hurricane Katrina.

13:36Barry, what changed after that disaster that changed the rules a bit about how this department was supposed to function? Well, it put limits and minimums on the leadership and the experience of leadership that needed to be at that agency, whether it was at the regional administrator level or, most importantly, the Post-Katrina Act required that an expert emergency manager be the head of FEMA, which we have not had during this current administration. As you mentioned, Senator Mullen today is going to be having his confirmation hearing in the Senate. So a big question moving forward is not just his leadership, if he gets confirmed, but rather putting a real emergency manager in charge of FEMA so that they can work with the states and do the important work that happens when, unfortunately, disasters hit.

14:30Well, as you mentioned, President Trump has nominated Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma to replace Kristi Noem. He faces Senate confirmation. That confirmation process is underway. Meanwhile, DHS has also been partially shut down for more than a month, And that's as congressional Democrats negotiate with the White House over changes to federal immigration enforcement policy. And DHS has restricted FEMA's disaster work during the shutdown, even though the agency's disaster relief fund is a separate pool of money that's not affected by the shutdown. But, Brianna, how is this partial shutdown of DHS hampering disaster response work and holding up relief even more?

15:08Yeah, so we were seeing this across the country. And I think what I want people to remember is when you have a disaster that the recovery is a 10-year plus process. And FEMA is involved in that process every year. And so we have disaster recovery projects, tens of thousands of them still ongoing from Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, California. these just take a long time. So the partial shutdown, for some reason, they stymied and stopped, slowed down a lot of these ongoing disaster projects. And these disaster workers, again, are funded by a separate pool of money. And when this happened, as what usually happens with DHS when it makes a decision, it was extremely sudden.

16:02There wasn't really any process to it. Disaster workers were kind of caught like mid-travel. They couldn't fly home for funerals, for their daughters giving birth, for doctor appointments because they weren't allowed to travel. And then that changed the day after. So it just caused a lot of unnecessary per FEMA employees chaos and confusion and stilted these ongoing disaster recovery projects in states that cannot pick up the slack and just dip into resources to be like, no worries, if we can't get help from FEMA, we'll keep going. And I think that's just really the big problem we're seeing here is if you just drastically halt or stop FEMA assistance and do not slowly roll that out, many states and communities don't have the resources, the rainy day funds, the emergency management infrastructure to just pick up and keep going.

17:03Well, we got this email from Pat who says,

17:32which impacted mostly very small towns. Flood repairs in these towns often double, if not triple, the size of these towns' annual budget. Thanks for that message. Gerard, what's at stake for communities in western North Carolina the longer these critical disaster funds remain in limbo? Well, again, there's kind of two levels to it. The local government level, which are waiting on public assistance grants, which are these reimbursements that FEMA allocates to local governments who spend money in the aftermath of the storm, either clearing debris or staffing 24-7 emergency management. And those grants just have been sporadic to come.

18:15I've talked to a few people who kind of study how FEMA disperses their money, and they've called it a magic wand process. Even Senator Ted Budd, when I asked him about this process, he said that disbursement largely relied on him calling Christy Noem, who he had a relationship with, and asking her and urging her to push out the money. And then for people like the gentleman who just emailed, here in North Carolina, we have about 800 people who have applied for these buyouts through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. And it has to go through state approval first and then federal approval. The state has approved about 600 of the 800 applicants, and they've just been waiting on the federal government to approve any of them.

19:07I think we've seen a slow trickle, maybe enough for about 12 properties throughout Western North Carolina. But these are people who are out of their homes, can't live in them because they've been flooded out, and are still paying mortgage on those homes and renting or staying in temporary housing while they are still paying a mortgage on a house they can't live in. Now, you mentioned North Carolina's Republican Senator Ted Budd. He announced the federal government will send the state$11 million for that hazard mitigation grant program. But that's a fraction of the$81 million in delayed federal aid that's now on its way to the state for Hurricane Helene recovery.

19:46Gerard, tell us a bit more about that program and what that new money specifically will go to. Well, hazard mitigation buyouts are complex, just like almost every other thing that FEMA does. But people who get flooded out of their homes and don't want to live in them anymore because it would cost too much to repair or because they're now in a flood zone and it's dangerous to live there will apply for a buyout or can apply for a buyout. And the state has to approve it. What North Carolina has done is batch a lot of approvals together, and they send those batches to the feds to approve. Once the federal government approves some of the money to come out, it's not directly sent to the state.

20:29It basically gives the state permission to spend up to that amount of money. So like you just mentioned, recently$11 million has come out for it. That means the state can start the buying out process of these homes for up to$11 million. And that just looks like a real estate transaction, which could take, you know, like we've heard, years. What has happened to your experience here, Barry? because the process Gerard just described, I think you used the word Byzantine to describe the bureaucracy around FEMA. When you think about your years working with the agency, what could help streamline some of that bureaucracy so that disaster recovery process could happen more quickly for states and communities?

21:19Well, there were terrible disasters like the Northridge earthquake, the Midwest floods, and other things that happened in the 90s when I was at FEMA. And in their defense, you know, all of the storms in 2017 and 2018 overwhelmed FEMA. And then, of course, every state became a disaster area with COVID. But we need to move with the times. You know, some of the things in the federal legislation include block grants, moving the money quicker down to the state level. A lot of the complaints about what's happened in the past are a bit of red herrings. states do run the disasters and localities do run the disasters now with financial help from the federal government, except for the most catastrophic disasters.

22:01Normally, states are running things now. So there could be block grants. There could be ways to get the money quicker. You could do more on the audit on the back end and have the responsibility be more on the states from a fiduciary reason, but things need to move quicker. I mean, the money that came out a few weeks ago, the several billion dollars, we've been told and it's been reported that there's 14 to 16 billion dollars sitting at DHS that's already been approved by FEMA staff and leadership. It's gone through this whole Byzantine process and it's ready to go. We've had rural electrics in North Carolina whose projects were approved six months ago who finally got their money two weeks ago.

22:46$700 million went to Puerto Rico on some of the energy projects we work on there. Schools in North Carolina that we work with, all of it was approved last year, and it's been sitting there waiting to be dispersed. So hopefully the other$5 to$10 billion that has been sitting at DHS can get out into the states and the communities so progress can happen and rebuilding and can move forward. Well, here's how former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem described FEMA's role in disaster relief. Emergencies and disasters are always locally executed. The state manages them, and then the federal government comes in and supports that.

23:23What we are doing here, sir, is empowering the state and the local officials to make the best decisions for their people, because they know their people, they know their community, and when they ask, then we come in and support them. So first, Barry, does that align with your experience of FEMA? Yes, that is typically and historically how FEMA has always worked. They didn't create anything new in the last 12 months other than trying to destroy it by removing staff from all the regions. One of the reasons that the mitigation projects that you've talked about have not been moving is they've decimated the staff, both at headquarters and throughout all the regions that work on these projects and would review those homes being bought out in North Carolina.

24:09And we'll talk more about those layoffs in just a few moments. Brianna, meanwhile, several states, as you mentioned, have had to dip into their rainy day funds to pay for disaster-related costs that FEMA agreed to pay but has not yet delivered. But these rainy day funds are designed to support states when they face an unexpected revenue shortfall, not necessarily pay for these costly recovery efforts. So what challenges does that present for states, not just in the short term, but in the long term as well? Sure. So most states, you know, they're required by their own state law constitution to balance their budget.

24:47And what we were hearing from communities in North Carolina last year is they were afraid that their budgets were going to be totally wrecked by not getting reimbursed from these public assistance and hazard mitigation grants. And so when a disaster hits states, especially those that are rural, and the state is required to fully take on the burden of those costs, they either have to raise revenue, which is really hard to do, or divert funds from other sources, which is also really hard to do. So likely those projects just won't happen. Those schools won't get fixed. Those hospitals won't go back online.

25:27And you have part of the community that for a long time, for generations, might just not recover. And Michigan, we were seeing this with the ice storms last year. The president approved a disaster for public assistance, but didn't include Category F, I believe, which are public utilities. So that led to electrical companies having to raise their rates on customers. And so everything just has this ripple, trickle-down effect when states do not get, and we're talking like millions of billions of dollars that they don't have in a rainy day fund. So if they have to take money from something else, like, again, it's just kind of an impossible feat for them to overcome when we keep seeing these disasters getting bigger and bigger.

26:19Well, and Gerard, what are those economic impacts here in North Carolina that lawmakers are most concerned about? Yeah, North Carolina is also the only state in the country without an approved budget yet. So we are kind of in a double whammy here when it comes to Helene recovery and what that looks like in terms of costing the state. So far, the General Assembly has kicked in about$4.4 billion in recovery aid. The governor in the next couple of weeks plans to ask for just under a billion more dollars. But the state, you know, what Brianna was talking about with states having to dip into their rainy day funds, local counties have had to do that as well.

27:05And for a lot of local governments that are rural, the storm costs them more than their annual budget. There are a few counties out here who spent more than their annual budget cleaning up after the storm and are waiting on FEMA reimbursements. The state, for their part, has kicked in and offered loans that aren't forgivable to these local governments, about$150 million. But that's just the tip of the iceberg for what these counties and local towns need. So, Gerard, just briefly in a couple of sentences, what are you watching for as the Senate goes through their confirmation hearing for Senator Mark Wayne Mullen to lead DHS?

27:47And as North Carolina continues to wait for the disaster funds it needs? Well, like the governor and every elected official here has said, that FEMA just needs to move faster, get the money out faster to local governments and to folks waiting for these buyouts. That's Gerard Albert. He's the Western North Carolina Rural Communities Reporter for Blue Ridge Public Radio. Gerard, thank you. Thank you. Brianna Sachs with The Washington Post is staying with us, as is Barry Scanlon. He's a former senior advisor of FEMA and co-founder of the crisis management and public safety consulting firm DCMC Partners.