Communities need FEMA's help to rebuild after disaster

By The Herald Editorial Board

The Trump administration — in its broad and breakneck campaign to transfer responsibility for much of what the federal government has previously delivered for its citizens “back to the states” — is jeopardizing one of the things that Americans collectively have always done best: reaching out with aid to fellow Americans in times of disaster.

Along with private donations of funds, clothing, food and literal helping hands, communities in the aftermath of disasters have been able to count on the nation’s taxpayer-supported emergency response system — whose roots stretch back to the early 1800s but was formerly organized as the Federal Emergency Management Agency by executive order of President Jimmy Carter in 1979 — to provide a foundation of financial support and assistance that shores up the considerable contributions and work of state and local governments to rebuild lives and communities in the aftermath of disasters, while also helping communities prepare for future calamities.

In the past, FEMA has positioned itself in a partnership of disaster preparedness and response that recognized the strengths of each sector: local execution, state management and federal support of those relief efforts.

The Trump administration now, in word and deed, appears to be walking away from that partnership. President Trump signed an executive order in mid-March that claimed it would end FEMA’s “subsidization of mismanagement” by expecting “local governments and individuals play a more active and significant role in national resilience and preparedness.”

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-communities-need-femas-help-to-rebuild-after-disaster/