Life in Cave City, Arkansas, is gradually returning to normal seven months after a devastating tornado ripped through the northeastern corner of the state. The town’s sole grocery store is preparing to reopen, and workers are already laying the foundation for a rebuilt funeral home.
Yet, despite these signs of progress, Mayor Jonas Anderson reveals a stark reality: his town, much like countless others grappling with recent catastrophes, has been largely left to navigate its recovery alone.
The Trump administration outright denied Cave City’s crucial requests for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding. This forced Mayor Anderson to press forward independently, incurring an estimated $300,000 bill—a staggering sum that could consume a full 15 percent of the small town’s annual budget.
While some individual residents did receive federal assistance for over 50 homes damaged or destroyed by the 165 mph winds in March, and the state also committed relief money, Mayor Anderson emphasizes that Cave City is shouldering a far greater portion of the recovery burden than ever anticipated.
Reflecting on the ongoing struggles, Mayor Anderson remarked, “We’re making a really good recovery not because of some big FEMA reimbursement we got, but in spite of not getting it.” He praised the community’s exceptional resilience.
(Image: Roger King, a resident of Canton, N.C., stands amidst bent metal and debris, a year after Hurricane Helene. His town still operates out of trailers, awaiting federal funds.) This scenario is becoming an increasingly common reality for communities across the country. It aligns directly with the Trump administration’s stated goal: to shift the primary responsibility for disaster recovery from the federal government to individual states, reserving federal intervention only for the most extreme catastrophes.
Indeed, FEMA has already begun systematically delaying disaster declarations and aid payments, creating new and often insurmountable hurdles for communities trying to access vital grant funds. Furthermore, the agency has cut off funding streams intended to boost resilience and prevent future disasters from causing widespread damage.
Emergency managers and elected officials nationwide are now confronted with a fundamentally altered system. They can no longer depend on the predictable disaster aid that FEMA, established in 1979 to professionalize crisis response, once provided. These officials are now forced to strategize for future disasters without key FEMA grants, resorting to private fundraising to compensate for federal shortfalls and urging state governments to enhance their own preparedness. In some areas, volunteer disaster recovery squads have even emerged to fill the growing void.
In an emailed statement, FEMA spokesman Daniel Llargues confirmed that the agency has deliberately held back certain disaster relief funding to ensure its future solvency. For example, an $11 billion allocation for coronavirus pandemic-related disaster projects, which states expected by September 30th, was deferred into the new fiscal year. Agency officials clarified that these payments are not canceled but merely postponed to maintain the integrity of the government’s disaster aid fund.
Mr. Llargues reiterated, “Under President Trump’s leadership, FEMA remains committed to supporting disaster survivors,” emphasizing the agency’s dual focus on immediate needs and long-term recovery efforts in its financial stewardship.
However, critics are sounding the alarm, warning that such prolonged delays could leave communities dangerously unprepared when the next catastrophe inevitably strikes.
Sarah Labowitz, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who closely monitors national disaster recovery spending, critically observed, “They’re making good on their promise to shift the burden onto states without giving the states any runway to prepare for that.”
Despite a milder-than-expected hurricane and wildfire season this year, which has allowed FEMA to stretch its disaster relief fund further than anticipated (projected to contain over $2 billion by the end of September, a decrease from a routine $22.5 billion Congressional infusion in March), the long-term implications of these policy changes remain a significant concern.
Since January, the Trump administration has approved only 32 federal disaster declarations. This is a stark contrast to the average of more than 60 declarations per year recorded between fiscal years 2015 and 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service. Furthermore, the Trump administration has rejected nearly a dozen state requests for FEMA aid this year alone, a figure consistent with rejections seen during both his first term and President Joe Biden’s tenure, based on FEMA data.
A persistent backlog of pending disaster aid requests has characterized this year, with a dozen such requests outstanding as of Tuesday. In previous administrations, it was rare for more than a handful of requests to remain unresolved at any given time.
(Image: Cave City, Ark., two months after being hit by a tornado. The Trump administration has denied the city’s requests for FEMA funds.)
Typically, Congress would appropriate tens of billions of dollars annually to replenish the disaster aid fund. Yet, amidst a government shutdown now entering its third week, substantive discussions about disaster funding on Capitol Hill have been conspicuously absent. A bipartisan House bill is currently gaining support, aiming to elevate FEMA to a Cabinet-level agency, with goals of streamlining its payment processes and accelerating crucial national investments in disaster resilience.
(Image: A backlog of disaster aid requests has reached 12 this week, a significant rise compared to previous administrations.)
Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, underscored the critical importance of a strong FEMA for effective coordination among states, especially given their potentially disparate capabilities in managing crises.
Mr. Pallone issued a grave warning: “These disasters tend to be multistate. If you have to do everything yourself, it’s not going to work because you don’t have the expertise.”
Conversely, advocates for a more streamlined FEMA contend that excessive federal aid can inadvertently discourage communities from making their own investments in preparedness. Dominik Lett, a budget policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a right-leaning research organization, argues that state and local governments are inherently better positioned to address the most common and predictable types of disasters, possessing a more granular understanding of local needs.
However, in areas still reeling from historic disasters, FEMA’s slow and unpredictable support starkly illustrates the limitations of these theoretical ideals. In western North Carolina, a full year after Hurricane Helene and four years after the devastating floods from Tropical Storm Fred’s remnants, the town of Canton continues to operate from temporary trailers, still awaiting federal funds for a new town hall and police station, as Mayor Zeb Smathers recounts.
Mayor Smathers’ frustration is palpable: “We should not have to count on recovery like it’s raffle money. It should be streamlined, efficient, dependable. It’s not.”
(Image: Zeb Smathers, the mayor of Canton, N.C., emphasizes that disaster recovery should be dependable, not a game of chance.)
Camille Rivera, president of La Brega Y Fuerza, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the Puerto Rican diaspora, warns that if FEMA continues to shift more responsibility to states and territories, poor communities will suffer disproportionately. This outcome is already starkly evident in Puerto Rico, where frequent blackouts and unresolved damage from Hurricane Maria in 2017 persist. Many residents, she notes, are increasingly bypassing FEMA and instead turning to crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe for help.
She further elaborated, “We have people who still have tarps on their roofs who haven’t been able to rebuild. A lot of communities aren’t even relying on the federal government anymore.”
Compounding these challenges, the Trump administration has either temporarily halted or entirely canceled various grant programs specifically designed to help communities enhance their resilience to future disasters.
On the Oregon coast, Erik Thorsen, chief executive of Columbia Memorial Hospital, is scrambling to find $14 million in alternative funding. This urgent search comes amidst ongoing construction for a $300 million hospital expansion engineered to withstand powerful earthquakes and tsunamis, as a previously expected FEMA grant has failed to materialize.
Currently, a lawsuit filed by 20 states seeks to reinstate the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program. The plaintiffs assert that since its establishment in 2018 during Mr. Trump’s first term, the program’s approximately $4.5 billion in investments have successfully prevented an estimated $150 billion in disaster damage.
In Cave City, where ambitious plans for a new park and community center are indefinitely postponed due to the necessary diversion of tax revenue toward tornado recovery, Mayor Anderson acknowledges President Trump’s rationale for wanting states to manage more disasters, recognizing their intrinsic understanding of local needs.
However, he stresses that such an abrupt and significant policy shift, implemented seemingly overnight, breeds profound uncertainty for local officials. This uncertainty complicates critical decision-making and, crucially, leaves countless livelihoods hanging in the balance.
Mayor Anderson’s final thought underscores the gravity of the situation: “It’s definitely going to have to be an adjustment. Nobody has the resources that the federal government can have.”