The FEMA Director From The Trump Administration Says The Agency Is Doing All It Can In North Carolina
Brock Long, who led FEMA for three years in the Trump administration was interviewed by The Atlantic
excerpts
The disaster response is never going to move as quickly as people would like. There’s a reason we call them catastrophic disasters. Things don’t work. They’re broken. And you don’t just say, Oh, let me flip that switch and turn that back on . You have to set expectations and be honest with people: Listen, we took a catastrophic hit. And it’s not just your area; it’s multiple states . People tend to see only their localized picture of the whole disaster event. I couldn’t tell you what was going on in Florida, South Carolina, or Georgia right now, because I am in my own little world in western North Carolina. There are only so many assets that can be deployed. I never point the blame at anybody. Nobody is at fault for this bad disaster. It’s not FEMA’s disaster. It’s all of our disaster. The whole community has got to come together to solve this problem.
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All disasters are locally executed, state managed, and federally supported. The locals know their jurisdictions best, and they convey their specific needs to the state. The state tries to fulfill what they can, and anything that exceeds their capacity goes into FEMA. It’s a from-the-bottom-to-the-top system. FEMA is not going to have visibility or familiarity with some of these areas that have been totally cut off, these towns that they don’t work in every day.
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If Congress is paying attention, the areas of North Carolina are going to need community-disaster loan capability, because some of these communities are going to be hemorrhaging sales-tax revenue, tourism tax and revenue, and their economy is going to take a hit over time, to where the revenue that’s coming in is not enough to meet the bills, to maintain the city or town.
I do think there is a way out of this negative cycle of disasters. It’s going to take Congress compromising and coming together to start incentivizing communities to do the right thing. What I mean by that is we have got to start rewarding communities that do proper land-use planning, that implement the latest International Code Council building codes , and we have to reward the communities that are working with insurance companies to properly insure their infrastructure.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-fema-interview/680136/?utm_source=feed
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The idea that Biden is withholding aid to North Carolina is ridiculous.
No one has said that. What they are saying is that the Biden/Harris administration was very slow in getting the aid process going in spite of having several days of warning about this storm.
The Biden administration seems to have enough spare change laying around to give aid to Lebanon. But American victims only get $750?
US to give $157 million in humanitarian aid in response to Lebanon crisis | Reuters
Speaker Johnson said he would not cut the recess short to approve disaster relief funds. Own it.
It's not needed right now.
Nether is a bandaid till you cut yourself but we stock them anyway.
There is sufficient money for now, the Congress needs to comeback after the election and resolve the Continuing Resolution to appropriate the full FEMA funding for 2025.
Might want to discuss that with Milton.
You don't believe FEMA when they say they have enough for now? How much more are they asking for? Is the Senate ready to come back?
You should ask the folks who draw with forked Sharpies.
I don’t think that they know these answers.
They think they do and it comes with their answer to everything: 'drill baby drill!'
I disagree and are voting otherwise.
The Democrats are claiming FEMA has two different budgets - one for migrant resettlement and one for disaster relief.
Did congress authorize that?
Shame on Donald Trump for worsening NC’s Helene tragedy with political lies | Charlotte Observer Editorial
Western North Carolina is trying to pick up the pieces left behind by Hurricane Helene, which decimated the region, leaving communities destroyed and a death toll in the triple digits.
This is not a situation to capitalize on for political gain. But former President Donald Trump has politicized the situation at every turn, spreading falsehoods and conspiracies that fracture the community instead of bringing it together.
The worst example is a social media post Trump made on Monday, in which he accused the federal government and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper of “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas. MAGA!” That same day, Trump also posted that the Biden administration has “left Americans to drown” in North Carolina and other states.
Then, in an interview with his former adviser Kellyanne Conway, Trump doubled down on his claim, saying the government is “going out of their way to hurt” Trump voters in Western North Carolina.
“They’re not getting water, they’re not getting anything,” Trump said.
Trump has also said that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp couldn’t get President Joe Biden on the phone to help his state with hurricane relief — a claim that Kemp himself debunked — and falsely claimed that the government doesn’t have enough money to respond to the disaster because “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants.” He’s called it “the worst response in the history of hurricanes” and suggested it would be the Biden administration’s own Hurricane Katrina.
There’s no evidence to support any of those ridiculous claims. And by every indication, state and federal agencies have been working to help people in need. They’ve been airlifting food and other supplies to affected areas. Helping families get information about missing loved ones. Providing monetary assistance to folks whose homes were destroyed. Working to clear and repair roads and get critical infrastructure back up and running.
It may not be enough, because this is one of the worst disasters our state has ever seen. It will take months and years to rebuild, and we still won’t be able to recover everything that was lost. But the people of North Carolina have not been left out to dry. Their government has not abandoned them. The Republican governors of Georgia and South Carolina have expressed satisfaction with the federal response.
Trump knows that. So does Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who accused Cooper and Biden of not doing enough to prepare for and respond to the storm. Robinson has used the tragedy for photo ops and posts on social media and predicted he will be called a “hero” for his efforts to help victims, despite the fact that he missed a key vote to declare a state of emergency in preparation for the storm.
Trump’s claims are as hypocritical as they are harmful. POLITICO’s E&E News reported this week that, as president, Trump could be “flagrantly partisan” in times of disaster and “on at least three occasions hesitated to give disaster aid to areas he considered politically hostile or ordered special treatment for pro-Trump states.” According to the report, Trump was hesitant to send disaster aid when California was ravaged by wildfires in 2018 until he learned the affected part of the state was saturated with Trump voters.
Let’s be clear: Western North Carolina is not a political football. This is not a campaign opportunity. The most unhelpful thing any politician — or anyone else — can do right now is spread misinformation and tell people that their government isn’t doing anything to help them.
Sowing the seeds of political division is always an unnecessary and tiresome endeavor. But doing so in times of great need, when unity is paramount, is particularly shameful.
If this article is any indication, FEMA is doing very little.
'Still No FEMA, Still No Military': Volunteers Blast Helene Response on CNN (msn.com)
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Othering has always been the goto ploy of populists everywhere.
Envy and fear motivate MAGA Madness...
Trumpster thug threatens to physically attack "anyone wearing a Harris hat".
video
I said this yesterday. Nobody expected this level of destruction in eastern North Carolina from this hurricane. And states need to start learning from Florida on how they handle emergency disasters. Florida has a lot of experience with this. They prepositioned the equipment and do the initial work and go back to FEMA for money as they need it. This is how this is supposed to work.
But the sad truth is that people will tend to blame Washington for the failure because it's a lot easier than accepting the blame for one's own actions. I do wonder how this will impact voting in North Carolina in November. I expect the failures to be placed front and center in new campaign ads.
I thought the worst devastation was in Western North Carolina?
Sorry, you are correct. I mistyped when I said eastern as I did mean western North Carolina.