THE Federal Emergency Management Agency Puts significant changes to the way it will react to disasters on the ground this season, in particular by finishing the reduction in federal door-to-door survivors in disaster areas, Wired learned.
A note examined by Wired, dated May 2 and addressed to the regional leaders of the FEMA of Cameron Hamilton, a senior official exercising the functions of the administrator, orders the program offices to “take measures to implement” five “key reforms” for the next season of hurricanes and forest fires.
As part of the first reform, entitled to prioritize the assistance of survivors in fixed installations, the note indicates that “FEMA will interrupt the reduction of FEMA not accompanied to concentrate the capacity to recording awareness and assistance in more targeted places, improvement of access to people in needs, and increase collaboration with collaboration with collaboration with a collaboration with collaboration and A collaboration with a collaboration with a collaboration with a collaboration with a collaboration with a collaboration with a collaboration with a collaboration and more and more [state, local, tribal, and territorial] Non -profit partners and providers. »»
Fema has for years Staff deployed to browse door-to-door in disaster areas, interact directly With survivors in their homes to give an overview of the FEMA help request processes and help them register with federal aid. This group of workers is often part of a larger framework called FEMA's “boots on the ground” in catastrophic areas.
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The end of the door to door canvas, said a fema worker, “will seriously hinder our ability to achieve vulnerable people.” The assistance provided by workers with door-to-door, he said: “has generally focused on the most affected and vulnerable communities where there may be the elderly or disabled or the lack of transport and are unable to reach the recovery centers after claim.” This person spoke with Wired on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the press.
“The door to door power is another example of a unnecessary and ineffective fema program,” told Wired Geoff Harbaugh, associate administrator of FEMA. “Under the management of President Trump and secretary Noem, FEMA changes its functioning and reforms its policies to better support the survivors of disasters and the American people. The recent executive decrees of President Trump allow states to effectively respond to natural disasters and to provide resources at community level. ”
Todd Devoe, the emergency management coordinator for the city of Inglewood, California, and the second vice -president of the International Association of Emergency Managers, said that during his years of work in the management of disasters, he saw how many survivors do not obtain information on recovery or resources without gate awareness – despite emergency managers editors and editors of the radio and the followers.
“It is very important to do door-to-door, especially in areas struck by criticism, to share information,” he said. “There is a need. It can be done more effectively? Probably, but completely getting rid of it will really hinder certain things.”
FEMA door jumping became a political flash point last year during the Hurricane Milton, when an agency denunciator alert The conservative news site The Daily Wire that an official told workers in Florida to avoid approaching houses with Trump construction signs. The former administrator of FEMA Deanne Criswell said The House Committee on Surveillance and Responsibility during a hearing last year that the incident was isolated for an employee, who had since been dismissed. The employee, in turn, said that she acted on orders Of a superior and that the problem was a model of “hostile meetings” with survivors who had Trump site panels.
The republicans of the supervisory committee allegedly alleged that they had received information indicating “generalized discrimination against people with Trump campaign panels on their property” throughout FEMA. In March, the agency licensee Three other employees following an internal investigation into the issue.
The investigation of the Office of Professional Responsibilities found no evidence that it was a systemic problem, or that it was managed by the agency or the management on the ground, “wrote Hamilton letter sent to the surveillance president James Comer.
Controversy for the soil budgetPublished on May 2, which decreases the “FEMA awakened FEMA grant programs” and proposes to reduce $ 646 million by FEMA “Non-Desaster” programs.
“The FEMA discriminated against the Americans who voted for the president following recent hurricanes, jumping their homes during their help. This activity will no longer be tolerated,” said the budgetary document. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
There is no mention in the FEMA note of the investigation or recent controversy and no reasoning provided to end the door stress process. FEMA has deployed door to door stress in states with federal disaster declarations approved under the Trump administration: an agency press release Of March mentions that the teams ranging from door to door to Virginia-Western after the severe storms of February.
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The memo arrives at a turbulent moment for the agency as it is preparing for the disaster season. At the end of April, cnn reported This FEMA had to lose around 20% of its staff in redemptions as part of cuts linked to the so-called Ministry of Elon Musk's Government. Last week, politico reported That the administration had ceased to approve the allowances for a crucial risk mitigation program only a few weeks after the news announced that the agency would end one of the largest climate adaptation programs of the federal government.
Some of the other note reforms include the agency's guidelines to “focus on available assistance from other partners” rather than federal aid, as well as emphasizing efforts to rely on local and public recovery centers rather than FEMA recovery centers and optimize the support of states and states recovery efforts. The memo stresses that the agency intends to “respect the primacy of states, territories and tribal nations in response to disasters”.
“Our role is to support our partners, not to replace them,” says the note. “Fema does not act alone.”
Devoe said that, like most of the responsibilities from FEMA to the local response, the task of monitoring the door-to-door survivors will now fall to local and state stakeholders. These groups may find it difficult to find the budget and the workforce, especially since the programs and federal subsidies continue to be cut.
“California, New York, Massachusetts, Florida, Washington, Oregon, Florida, Texas-they are fine,” he said. “It's going to be these small states – will they go well?”
