Having been on the road practically every week this year has made blogging a bit of a challenge. I’ve had some engagement on LinkedIn, often in discourse on the issues facing disaster and emergency management brought on largely by the current administration.

You’ve probably heard of the concept of mushroom management, right? Keep people in the dark and feed them shit. That’s what we’re getting regarding the future of FEMA, which makes it extremely difficult for practitioners to chart a course ahead for this field. The only information we receive is poorly communicated intent and obfuscation. Those who are supposed to be representing the profession either aren’t asking the right questions or are being ignored.

Let’s take a look at this horrible bit of journalism from earlier in the month (I’ll note that most news outlets have been using the same quotes and generally haven’t brought us anything new either).

I’ll break this down a bit. First, the headline: Trump and Noem detail planned FEMA changes: ‘We’re going to give out less money’. Commentary: There is NO detail in the article or in anything the administration has communicated about this. Simply stating that they are going to give out less money leaves a whole lot of questions. Much of the narrative has been around funds associated with declared emergencies and major disasters, but there is a whole lot of other funding that FEMA manages. More on this later.

A quote early in the article: “We want to wean off FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level… We’re moving it back to the states.” Commentary: If I’ve not made this abundantly clear before, DISASTER MANAGEMENT HAS ALWAYS BEEN A STATE (and local, tribal, and territorial) ISSUE. What exactly is being moved back to the states? Further, as I’ve stated in a previous article, I’m not opposed to a ‘weaning off’ of federal funds, but there should be a plan in place for this which is implemented over time and communicated with enough lead time to allow state, local, tribal, and territorial governments to begin adjusting budgets. Also, this again begs the question of exactly what funding is being changed. We need information so this can be addressed.  

The next quote in the article: “We’re going to give out less money… It’s going to come from the President’s Office” Commentary: How, exactly, is it coming from the President’s office? The Stafford Act assigns FEMA with the responsibility for coordinating federal disaster assistance. So are we changing the law?

The next item I want to poke at is a quote from Secretary Noem in the article, which reads “the administration is building communication and mutual aid agreements among states to respond to each other so that they can stand on their own two feet…”. Commentary: Does she mean the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC)? The same EMAC that has its roots going back to 1992 and was ratified by Congress in 1996 as a nation-wide system of state-to-state mutual aid and used very effectively since then? That mutual aid system? Or is the administration building something else? This seems to be a greatly misinformed quote.

With no apology for my language, what in the actual fuck is going on here?

I pointed out the article as being a horrible bit of journalism because it’s simply reporting quotes and NO ONE IS ASKING QUESTIONS. (Or if they are, they aren’t being answered). There are a lot of questions that need to be asked and answered. This is a big issue. A complicated issue. It requires a whole lot of clarity. The problem is, it seems that those making decisions really don’t know anything about the topic or what they are doing.

Over the past couple of months we’ve seen leaked budget proposals that impact emergency and disaster management grants, public health emergency preparedness grants, and the like. Those grants that aren’t being completely cut in these proposals are being reduced by tens of percentage points, equating to tens, and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars. Regardless of the long-term impacts of these decreases, this is massively disruptive in the short term. Disruptive to the point that entire programs will be gutted and our collective ability to respond to disasters will be dangerously impacted. Again, I ask what is the plan or is the administration simply hacking and slashing away at things? As no existence of a plan, much less a strategy, has been mentioned, I can only believe this to be arbitrary and uninformed.

So many people are acknowledging there are issues with FEMA and that addressing them can be good, and I won’t dispute that, but that’s as far as they go. It’s a statement, a justification, an excuse, but it’s not a conversation. This needs to be a conversation. Uninformed change is bad. Misguided change is bad. Change for the sake of change is bad. As I stated in a recent LinkedIn post, emergency managers need to get their shit together. While the usual pace of government and bureaucracy can be frustratingly slow at times, we have systems in place for a reason. Change at this level must be well considered with input garnered from across the practice. The rhetoric and bull in a China shop approach might excite those who are easily impressed with superficial, performative bullshit; but it shouldn’t for those of us with some intelligence and background in this. We have a lot of smart people in emergency and disaster management, but I’m not hearing a lot of voices.

Who should ask questions? What percentage of elected officials at the federal level even know what the Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) is? I’m betting it’s pretty low. Do they even realize there are prevention, preparedness, and hazard mitigation funds and programs or do they only know about assistance after a disaster? It’s easy for us to point a finger at the membership organizations for not doing enough advocacy and outreach (are they?), but that job isn’t theirs alone. It’s on ALL of us to get elected officials to understand what these programs are and why they are necessary, or at least advocate a better way to enact cuts. If you don’t know how to contact your members of Congress, start here and tell them the current approach is unacceptable. Likewise, if you haven’t contacted your state elected officials, you need to do so as well. The writing seems to be on the wall that these significant cuts in funding are coming and they need to discuss (with practitioners!!!) how to deal with it.

Regardless of the outcome of FEMA’s status and that of federal program funding, disaster management will continue, but the impacts may very likely be severe, and not just in the short term. There will be lasting impacts which will need to be addressed through years to come and at a much greater cost than delaying this politically-driven action in exchange for a more thoughtful approach.

TR