What do you think of Trump thinking of doing away with Fema?

It is a way for him to use disasters as opportunity for extortion, and punishing opposition. Red states will continue to get aid no questions asked. Blue states will get extorted.
After all, that is already happening with California and their wildfires.

Considering FEMA’s track record, it’s not a great loss, and maybe it’s a good idea.

Some disasters are too big for individual states to deal with adequately. That is why Fema is required. Trump himself is a disaster too big for America to deal with.

Even worse it was during a tour he was taking through the LA area, and in North Carolina where a hurricane it, where he was expressing his concern for everybody.

TRUMP DOESNT EVEN KNOW WHAT FEMA IS.

I think he wants the FEMA money sent to the White House in a brown paper wrapper addressed to him !

Florida is SCREWED, the next Hurricane will put the state in bankruptcy if Trump cancels FEMA.

Trump is the emergency that should be done away with.

I can certainly see southern poor states are not going to recover. Texas may do okay but they don’t collect state taxes, so I guess the oil barrons will help. LOL

I know I was reading in some groups on Facebook, after Hurricane Helene, that the people weren’t receiving any money from FEMA because of paperwork problems, which is typical government bullshit but not helpful when you have no house and need help and no money is coming from an agency that’s supposed to help you.

There’s a town about a half hour from me, in CT that had a recent disaster with flooding in August 2024 and I’m in a group for that town on Facebook, where people were posting their photos and discussing the roads and bridges that were wiped out, people whose houses literally floated away, and other sad disasters from the flooding. They, too, were saying that FEMA wasn’t helpful, their claims were denied, and they were very upset.

I don’t know, because there may be two sides to every story, but apparently FEMA has a reputation for denying claims and not being that helpful after a disaster.

I personally have never needed FEMA, knock on wood. The time I lived in a building that burned in a fire, the Red Cross was so helpful with their assistance.

He is just trying to overhaul FEMA, and I hope he succeeds. The response in Asheville is a stain on our whole country. Practically nothing has been done.

Delayed and nonexistant are two different things @jca2.

@Dutchess_III If you have a major flood event, and are now homeless, since August 2024 and it’s now January 2025, delayed and non-existent are about the same thing.

@Dutchess_III Trump knows exactly what FEMA should be and he also knows the sorry state it’s in. This country NEEDS FEMA to be functional. The Donald has some humanity even if it’s self-serving in the end. If he can get some help in the region, I’m all for it.

When there’s a disaster, FEMA should go in, assess the area and assess the dwellings that are ruined, grant money quickly and with a minimum of paperwork.

The local town that had the flooding, that was discussing FEMA in local FB groups, was saying not only that their applications were denied, but there was nobody to discuss it with, nobody to appeal to. They were left out in the cold, literally and figuratively.

It’s a goverment entity. It’s as sluggish as any other government agency. Sure it could be restructured. That’s not the same thing as getting rid of it.
Does he want it privatized?

August to January and stil no answer yet is inexcusable.

Yes it is. So what would you do? Get rid of it completely?

I don’t know. Apparently the paperwork process is too cumbersome, if people don’t have an answer six months later.

FEMA was a big help to my area after Sandy. I think we definitely need a Federal agency to lend support to areas hard hit by storms. I’ve heard good reports of FEMA’s help in North Carolina and dissatisfied reports. I wouldn’t base my conclusions on anything Trump is saying as he is basically looking to dismantle the government.

My opinion is based on people’s personal posts in Facebook groups.

@jca2 Fema only helps to restore your home to make it livable and in most cases people can get assistance for low interest loans to help rebuild, but they do not give you the value of your home to rebuild.
Facts about fema
They also do a lot more. As for what you read on groups on FB, you should take that with a grain of salt. You do not know what these believe they are entitled to vs. what they are really entitled to. You also do not know if they did the fill out the paperwork properly to show they are making claims on their home.
We all know people who cry about not getting something they feel they were entitled to who never even bothered to fill out the proper paper work or bother to try to follow up.
As I see it their primary job is to provide assistance before during and after an event. They help coordinate groups to help.
I think it will be difficult to get help if they have to rely on all the volunteers being from in state to begin with. Local government offices will be closed so how do they help?
Fema isn’t a magic bullet and billions of dollars of damage is going to take months to recover from.
I remember a snow storm on the east coast over 14 years ago that damage roofs beyond repair. When I tried to get a roof patch job done, I couldn’t find anyone. Everyone from my area was working on storm victims homes. It took about 4 months to get someone out to my house to look at it. Luckily it was a small leak that didn’t cause to much damage but it took another 2 months for their schedule to open up for them to replace my roof. (It was over 30 so I figure it was best to replace it.).
I know good people who work in Fema and volunteered and spend weeks without much rest and no days off, and away from family, trying to help people in immediate need.
What they do is hard and what people expect is a miracle.

I know that the money from FEMA isn’t going to be dollar for dollar on the value of the loss, and I’m sure they’re hard working people (being a government worker for 30 years, I know it’s often hard work and under appreciated). I just think (my opinion) tjat it seems the process needs streamlining. If enough people are unhappy and complaining about the process, eventually word gets to the top.

I agree. It needs to be streamlined. That’s called “restructuring,” which isn’t the same as getting rid of it.

Did I say they should get rid of it? I don’t see that I did.

^^^^ Trump did.

I can tell you that what happens at government agencies is that there are layers and layers of bureaucracy (which is often the criticism of government – all the bureaucracy), and everything requires many forms and multiple departments to handle. I used to say they had a form for when you want to wipe your ass. Things become a very cumbersome process, and everyone just does their little piece of the process, and if you ask anybody in the “chain” why is it done this way, they’ll say “because it just is.” So things become so cumbersome, and nothing changes, and nobody has any incentives to change things. It can’t be a bad thing to look at FEMA and maybe figure things out – why do things take so long? What is the holdup? Can we eliminate some steps so people can get some relief faster, instead of six months?

With the fires in California, the number of claims are going to be so huge, there needs to be a way to speed things up.

Maybe there needs to be a re-set.

And I agree 100%. So would doing away with FEMA help?

20 years ago, similar criticism (layers of bureaucracy, etc),

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/government_programs-july-dec05-fema_09-09

Well sure! I have to deal with the beaurocacy too. The DMV is the one I’m most familiar with.
But recently getting certified copies of death certificates and marriage certificates. Yes, it’s a pain, but I don’t think that doing away with those agencies would help.
There has to be a better way.

I got a different take on what he said about states taking it over. The funding and resources would still be available from the Fed, but the overall control would be with the states. The reasoning was that when FEMA goes into a disaster area, they don’t know anything about it. They don’t know the roads, they don’t know alternate routes if a road or a bridge are out, they don’t know what resources are available locally…nothing. For them to walk in and act as the head on the horse, you are asking for a poor response. Let the governors tell the feds what help they need but they would control the response.

After what FEMA did in NC, HI, or even FL, I’d say FEMA needs to go away. Get rid of all the jobs, save the money on the admin of it. I will say it was a breath of fresh air seeing a leader visiting the disaster areas and talking to the people, finding out what they need, what problems they were having, and looking for solutions.

This does not make sense at all. FEMA does more than just pay aid or provide boots on the ground for disasters.
FEMA funds countless projects for federal and state and local agencies. Floodplain mapping, to river flow, seismic warning systems, . This is all in the proactive mind of mitigating disasters. They are one of the biggest clearinghouse for the USGS projects that do this mitigation effort.

@seawulf575 FEMA knows more about local infrastructure than you state here. Please site a reputable source that documents where the know nothing about a local area. They work collectively with state and local agencies. Please again provide some reliable backing for your statements. What’s next then, defund the USGS and do it locally?

@Forever_Free You are asking me to prove a negative. Think of it this way: I know 4 different ways to get into Wilmington NC. If one of them is out of service…say a bridge gets destroyed…I readily know the alternative routes. I don’t have to look it up on maps and wonder about those routes. Someone coming from FEMA is coming from 350–400 miles away doesn’t know the layout or the locations of things as well as I do. Not to mention my neighbors and local officials have a lot more skin in the game that FEMA. They will find ways to help where FEMA just quits at the first problem.

Here is an example of what I mean. Not to mention you are less likely to get this sort of treatment from local or state aid as opposed to the Feds.

FEMA advises against driving around closed road signs or through floodwaters, as it can be dangerous and lead to drowning.

Explanation:

Driving into floodwaters can cause a vehicle to be swept downstream.

Roads may collapse under floodwaters, making them unsafe to drive on.
Floodwaters are especially dangerous at night when visibility is poor.

What to do instead

Turn around and don’t drive into floodwaters.
Follow instructions from local officials.
Move to higher ground or a higher floor.
Stay off bridges over fast-moving water.
Plan to evacuate or shelter in place.

@Tropical_Willie I get all that. But what you are listing is the guidance they give to the average citizen. My point is that in a situation like that, local or state officials may know readily of an alternative route to bypass the closed road. At a minimum they come up with alternative plans for going into such areas. They do NOT just give up and say “Sorry, you’re on your own.” As the disaster assistance group, they should have plans for dealing with washed out roads or roads that are blocked by debris. If they do not, then what good are they? Don’t you think every disaster they get involved with has some version of those hazards?

Attention-seeking maniac. Riles up people with asinine statements. For what reason? See first sentence.

@seawulf575, why are you assuming FEMA isn’t going to be working alongside the local agencies as well as with the Senators, Representatives, Governors and the Mayors of the states involved? Why do you think they’re going in blind? That is absurd.
He’s an idiot and you know it. He’s just blindly following directions from someone.

Putin’s puppet @Dutchess_III

The FEMA tells their people not to endanger themselves by going around road closed signs , . .

I KNOW someone would go around just because it says “DON“T CROSS” !

@Dutchess_III I assume FEMA isn’t going to be working alongside local agencies because they never do. They come in and “take charge” making decisions for what everyone is supposed to do. They blocked people trying to help in NW NC. There were groups that gathered all sorts of food and water to give out to the affected people and FEMA swooped in and took it all away, moving it into storage where it was not as accessible and where they could implement red tape on distribution of those things. They didn’t work with anyone, they had to be large and in charge. It quickly was passed along to everyone that if they wanted to donate stuff to do so through churches since FEMA isn’t allowed to take stuff from the churches.

Proove it @seawulf575.

Pictures @seawulf575 or it is not REAL ! !

Just you and your Trump imagination !

@Tropical_Willie You might know more than I because you live in that state but I had read that there were some victims who were given misinformation and told not to accept help from FEMA and this was part of the chaos.

Yes @janbb by Trump’s MAGA followers, the right is trashing the coountry one diaster at a time.

I’m waiting for a Hurricane to sweep through Mar-A-Lago’s neighborhood and the only Federal support is going to TRUMP (by his command) !

Great idea. Better to have states handle and the Fed assist with the cost but stay the hell out of the way.

@SnipSnip Trump wants it to disappear !

He wants California to change environmental laws to receive aid, to ignore climate change and maybe return to the 1970s.

@seawulf575 I was asking you to back up your statement that FEMA knows nothing about a disaster area. Simple enough if you are stating such a thing as a basis for not needing them. FEMA agents visit these areas constantly as does the USGS. I know several people who work for both agencies and we talk about their travels and responsibilities. Specialists who understand floodplains and the risk and results travel prior to such events and over the years. A family member is a Civil Engineer for the Army Corp and knows every stretch of his responsible areas that stretch thousands of miles. Please give these people credit for their knowledge and care for what they do and how vast they are prepared and help as opposed to saying they know nothing about areas away from them and that they are expendable. Be knowledgeable before you make such comments please.

@SnipSnip but it wouldn’t be fair because there is such a diversity of wealth between states as well as populations.
There are times when the Federal governnent needs to be able to level the field, and I think this is one of them.
That’s why we are One Nation.

@seawulf575 Did you read your own posted article? They were told that their home was deemed habitable and could return.

^^^^ he often doesn’t!

@Forever_Free Gee, why don’t I have faith in FEMA or why don’t I think they know as much about an affected area as the locals? I just gave you the article that explains it perfectly. A road closed sign stopped them dead and they didn’t even try to get beyond it. Yet the POST reporter got through. Locals got through. Pretty much everyone got through except FEMA. You have since tried to say this article actually said FEMA told the people their house was habitable and they could return. You are wrong. They never said that at all. In fact the article never even got to the point where FEMA got to the affected area. These people lost everything in many cases and FEMA was willing to give them $750 in compensation. Just like they did in Lahina, HI. Of course they had to go online to go to the FEMA website to apply for this compensation. Forget that there is no internet for so many there. It’s a sham. Even Gov. DeSantis doesn’t rely on them for anything other than funding. He can’t trust them to be there when they are needed nor that they will do anything of use if they do show up. He has learned through trial and failure that FEMA is useless for anything else.

@seawulf575 FEMA isn’t supposed to do it all. When FL has a hurricane we get help from GA, NC, and keep going north, and even Canada sometimes. States should coordinate to help each other, and private business is helping a great deal too.

I assume NC evacuated most of those areas before the hurricane, but if they didn’t it was likely borderline negligence. I said the same about a Houston hurricane several years back. People excused it as difficult to evacuate a city that large. Bullshit. We evacuate cities like Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, evacuations are just within a couple miles of waterways, it’s not the entire city.

FEMA was there helping, they just can’t be the one and only answer.

If NC wasn’t evacuated appropriately (I don’t know) that is a comment about the governor and local officials, not FEMA. The excuse once in a 100 year flood is no excuse and it doesn’t matter how often. There was a ton of rain that completely saturated western NC and then immediately after the hurricane came through. They knew they were already very saturated.

^^trump, his sycophants and his defenders are infected with AIDS you know. American Institutions Derangement Syndrome.

@JLeslie FEMA IS supposed to do it all. Their roll as the Federal Emergency Management Agency is to go into areas like this and manage all parts of the federal response to the disaster. They are supposed to be part of the pre-disaster evaluation and preparation, they are supposed to be some of the first on the scene when the POTUS declares an emergency, they are supposed to coordinate with state and local officials to guide recovery. Don’t take my word for it:

https://www.fema.gov/about/how-fema-works

Apparently they are very good at their jobs since they didn’t see this disaster coming. Why? Because no hurricane had ever caused this kind of impact in that area ever before. The citizens that lived near the rivers knew that during heavy rains the river can crest and that has likely happened before. But not to the extent they saw. And FEMA helped guide the evaluation and recovery until they came to a Road Closed sign and then it basically stopped for the town of Bat Cave and the 187 people that lived there. Oh well, they’re on their own until they can restore the road for us.

And let’s not forget Florida by any means. Remember how they were doing evaluations based on the political signs that were in the front yards of the homes? Those with Trump signs got passed over. Yeah, it is time for FEMA to go bye bye in the role it currently holds. De Santis is right to not count on them for anything except as a piggy bank.

@seawulf575 You’re wrong. Your twisting the mission of FEMA. I’n not arguing FEMA is perfect, but just saying you are missing the mark.

Plus, the fed can’t enter a state without the request from the governor.

I live in a state that evacuates almost every year. The governor works with the local mayors to decide evacuation orders, not the fed. NOAA is the only agency allowed to issue hurricane watches and warnings (not the same as tornado watches and warnings) and the governor and local officials use that data and their knowledge of the terrain and ability to move the population to make decisions.

The governor issues disaster area requests prior to the hurricane (if they are smart) so the fed has permission to come into the state as soon as the danger passes and does not need to rely on contact with the governor to move personnel in.

DeSantis does a great job during disasters, I’m happy to give him credit, but pretty much all Florida governors are good at it the last 20 years. DeSantis did make some improvements. DeSantis going on TV criticizing FEMA as he did I feel is dog whistle bullshit. I don’t mind criticism, but it’s how it’s done. If he has a better system he should talk to FEMA to improve practices not sabotage them.

I don’t know anything about FEMA skipping houses in FL. In NC they stopped help for two days because the alt-right was putting out threats to FEMA workers. The leaders in the state of NC condemned the crazy alt-right QAnon whatever you want to call them.

Emergency workers are not supposed to risk their life to unreasonable risk. Even in Florida our first responders don’t respond when winds are sustained above 40mph. People call 911 and they have to wait; it can be hours, they can die. If someone was threatening state emergency personnel with violence, an ambulance isn’t going, or some other unarmed untrained service.

These far right fanatics, and Republicans who go along with it, hurt themselves by trying to dismantle our systems that are there to help. Improving the system should be the goal.

You can’t rely on a governor to be good, a state could have an idiot in that seat when a disaster happens. FEMA is there for the COUNTRY. Why do the people waving the US flag the most want to dismantle the country the most? Make America Great Again, their actions seem more to want to break up America.

@JLeslie The mission of FEMA I gave you comes from FEMA, not seawulf575. You can say it isn’t right, but you need to talk to them about it. According to FEMA, they are supposed to go to all these areas when times are good and evaluate where the biggest dangers could be, to work with state and local officials to come up with the best way to deal with those dangers should they happen, etc. That isn’t something that is contingent on the governor calling them up. They are just supposed to do it. That is part of their preparation.

As for the Trump signs controversy, it carries over into NC as well:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fired-fema-employee-says-instructions-skip-trump-homes-were-part-colossal-avoidance-policy

https://www.carolinajournal.com/fired-fema-official-alleges-wnc-homes-with-trump-signs-avoided-after-helene/

But they are fully engaged in DEI practices:

https://www.carolinajournal.com/opinion/is-wokeness-hampering-femas-response-to-helene/

https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_equitable-recovery-post-disaster-guide-local-officials-leaders.pdf

https://x.com/KCOnTheRadio/status/1856285433954533731

FEMA has gone so far off the rails that it is no longer an assistance and is instead a hampering of rescue efforts.