When a series of deadly storms and tornadoes pummeled Arkansas in mid-March, downing power lines and tearing up homes, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders asked the federal government for money to not only help repair the damage, but also boost the state’s defenses against future disasters.
On May 8, President Donald Trump to help individuals and families recover. But a week later, the Federal Emergency Management Agency told Huckabee Sanders, a Republican who was Trump’s press secretary during his first term, that it was denying the second pot of money — the — to help the state rebuild stronger, according to a rejection letter seen by Bloomberg News.
Later in the month, the agency denied a hazard mitigation funding request from Virginia, weeks after Trump approved other aid as part of a major disaster declaration for mid-February winter storms. Virginia officials say they “are exploring the appeals process but do not have any further details.”
These denials mark a stark departure from how previous administrations have handled such requests. In recent decades, presidents have routinely signed off on those funds as part of the large aid package that comes with major disaster declarations, according to interviews with six state hazard mitigation officials and former FEMA officials and advisors. Unlike the type of help Trump has continued to approve, which states use to cover immediate needs after a wildfire or hurricane, hazard mitigation funds pay for extra protections to help communities better withstand future natural disasters, such as elevating buildings in flood zones or adding safe rooms to homes in tornado-prone areas.
In addition to those two denials, the administration held off on approving 11 other similar requests over the past two months even as it signed off on other parts of state post-disaster aid packages. FEMA is still reviewing their applications, according to officials from Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas, which is waiting to hear back on a second request for a more recent disaster. With the exception of Kentucky and Kansas, all these states have Republican governors.
Disaster officials and researchers say these funds are essential to prepare and protect communities in the long term as climate change increases the number and severity of natural disasters. Spending the money now to increase states’ resilience also reduces future damages and recovery costs, they say.
“It’s a really effective use of one-time dollars that saves FEMA money in the long run, but also helps our people to be safer,” said Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, who is waiting to hear back on separate requests for hazard mitigation funding made following severe weather in April and May.
The White House declined to comment on specific state requests for hazard mitigation funds. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the administration is monitoring states’ ability to spend hazard mitigation grants as it weighs new requests, adding that officials have seen large balances of unallocated and unspent funds.
“We are working with states to assist them in identifying projects and drawing down balances in a way that makes the nation more resilient,” she added.
In a leaked draft memo from April and confirmed by Bloomberg News, FEMA, the nation’s top agency for disaster response and recovery, recommended the White House “not automatically approve” applications for hazard mitigation funds as one of several ways to immediately cut federal disaster costs. Per the memo, it’s “an action the President has already taken.” The agency did not respond to questions about hazard mitigation.
“I think what they’re suggesting is if you want to build back stronger, it needs to come from your state dollars,” said Carrie Speranza, the former chair emeritus of FEMA’s National Advisory Council before the Trump administration dismissed its members. “Then you look at the operating budgets of those states. That money’s just not there.”
The Remaking of FEMA
The administration’s new tack on hazard mitigation funds came with no warning or guidance, state officials say, but it’s part of broader efforts to shrink the scope of federal disaster work.
Over the past four months, Trump has called for the elimination of FEMA, launched a council tasked with “streamlining” its operations and temporarily put in charge of the agency David Richardson, a former military official with no emergency management experience. Meanwhile, FEMA has reduced its staff by at least hundreds of people, identified more than a dozen near- and long-term ways to cut funding, according to the leaked draft memo, and paused at least $2.2 billion in grant spending to states. (A federal judge last month ordered the money be released.)
The agency also canceled a Biden-era grant program to fund disaster preparedness outside the recovery of a specific hurricane, tornado or wildfire, saying it was “wasteful” and “ineffective.”
Disaster experts argue ending that program, called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, while also pulling back on post-disaster hazard mitigation money is a short-sighted move that could cost the government more money in the long run.
Hazard mitigation funding “didn’t just pop out of nowhere — it actually came in response to a really big financial problem the federal government was experiencing,” said Robert Verchick, a Loyola University climate legal expert. The practice had been to restore homes and infrastructure to their pre-disaster condition, instead of using the federal money to fortify communities against future damage. “It’s a waste of money to build something back in a way that you know is going to fail again,” he added.
A partially funded by FEMA estimates every $1 in federal grant money spent on hazard mitigation saves $6 in disaster damages in the future. The return on investment is higher for federal spending on flood mitigation. For example, by granting $11.5 billion to help states build up river defenses between 1993 and 2016, the federal government avoided $82 billion in losses from the deaths, flooded property and associated business disruptions communities would have suffered without those protections, according to the researchers’ calculations.
“Mitigation, or preparedness, saves lives,” said Jiqiu Yuan, a co-author of the report and chief resilience officer at the National Institute of Building Sciences. “We want to make clear the saving is to the whole society — that’s not only to the government, that’s not only to the building owners, that’s not only to the insurance business.”
How do hazard mitigation funds work?
Although the federal government approves requests for the hazard mitigation grant program in the aftermath of disasters, in order to get this money, states have to develop a plan beforehand and every funded project must be vetted by federal officials.
One way states have spent these grants is by buying out properties in high-risk flood zones where homeowners can’t afford to move without financial help. That’s how Kentucky used nearly $72 million in hazard mitigation funds after deadly flooding in 2022, helping buy out hundreds of properties in zones at risk of flooding again.
After Tropical Storm Irene caused widespread flooding in 2011, Vermont spent the majority of $34 million in hazard mitigation grants towards property buyouts, said Stephanie Smith, the state’s mitigation lead. The FEMA grants covered 75% of the buyout costs, while the state put in the remaining 25%. Vermont likely wouldn’t have been able to fully cover the costs on its own, Smith said.
States have also used this FEMA money to elevate flood-risk infrastructure, build home or community safe rooms and invest in warning systems, according to a review of funded projects identified in state hazard mitigation plans.
“The states rely heavily on the federal money,” said Yuan. “I’m not sure the states will have the supplemental funding from their state capitals to support this kind of effort.”
Photo: Workers clean up debris following a tornado outside of London, Kentucky, on May 18. Photographer: Michael Swensen/Getty Images
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