New Orleans Trump knows he’s wrong. Killing FEMA would be a human and political disaster. Being asked by reporters whether he still believed ending FEMA was the right move, he clearly was hesitating and rethinking the issue. The terrible tragedy in central Texas due to the flooding of the Guadalupe River and to a lesser degree the Colorado River near Austin prompted the question and Trump’s response. In an unusually astute answer for such a headline grabber, he said he wasn’t going to travel to the scene of the disaster immediately, “because we’d just be in the way.” FEMA though, was on the scene in full force, and needed to be there.
The Texas floods may end up being the worse such disaster in a century, with more than 80 dead already confirmed and more than 40 still missing. The National Weather Service counts flooding as the second highest cause of weather-related deaths after heat. Over the last decade, there have been more than 113 deaths on average due to flooding every year in the United States.
Looking just at Texas, highlights the impending disasters that await us. As the Times’ reports:
The Guadalupe River rose from three feet to 34 feet in about 90 minutes, according to data from a river gauge near the town of Comfort, Texas. The volume of water exploded from 95 cubic feet per second to 166,000 cubic feet per second. In the eastern part of the state, the number of days per year with at least two inches of rain or snow has increased by 20 percent since 1900, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment,…. Across Texas, the intensity of extreme rain could increase another 10 percent by 2036, according to a report last year by … the Texas state climatologist.
Texas isn’t Louisiana or Mississippi or Arkansas. Relatively speaking, the state is not only bigger, but richer. Still, there’s no way that no matter what Texas or any other state can do to prepare, that it can be ready for this kind of catastrophic event. You know what, that’s why we have FEMA, just like its name, to put the whole weight and force of the federal government to the task of managing emergencies. Surely, it doesn’t take much to remember that only months ago heavy rainfall triggered by a hurricane devastated whole sections of North Carolina, where families and communities are still trying to recover.
Need I remind anyone that in only a little more than a month, there will likely be a raft of stories commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast? Twenty years later, the city is still recovering in some sectors, and along the coast the scars of the storm are everywhere. These broke-ass states wouldn’t have a chance to protect their populations and bring them to safety, much less rebuild, without the support and treasury of the United States and its implementation by FEMA on the ground. Coupled with the budgetary attack on these states in the new Trump budget bill, the existence and full support of FEMA as a kind of catastrophic insurance is central for families and communities, large and small.
Recently, Arkansas Grassroots United, a coalition of membership-based groups concerned about the impact of climate change and other issues on their people, decided to take action on this issue and demand of their Congressional delegation a full effort to save FEMA and reverse Trump’s November closing date. The Texas flooding is another reminder and call to action for all of us to do what is necessary to save FEMA.