State & Local Leaders: Don't Eliminate FEMA, Improve It

Bill Saffo has served more than two decades as mayor of Wilmington, the economically crucial city hosting a major seaport, popular industry, a university and roughly 125,000 people living their daily lives. The Atlantic Ocean is just a breeze away, making his community and its neighboring beach towns powerful magnets of tourism and an important venue for history back to the colonial 1700s. But with every year comes a certain kind of dread as weather scientists provide projections for the ocean’s imposing, seasonal behavior. Wilmington has survived so many hurricanes and tropical formations just during Mayor Saffo’s time in office alone that he and his counterparts were left stunned by the recent, serious conversations in Washington, D.C. about possibly ending the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a time-and-again vital partner in the city’s recovery from disaster. “I’ve lived it,” said Mayor Saffo.

“I’ve seen it. I know what the budget constraints can be. I know the devastation that these storms cause. There’s just no way that the states and the local communities can do this on their own.”

President Donald Trump and his team have long suggested shifts from or straight elimination of FEMA, whose website frontpage (at the time of this writing) emphasized the importance of hurricane readiness. Floods, fires, tornadoes and other kinds of declared disasters are also in FEMA’s purview, but President Trump said he views the agency as too flawed and slow to continue as we know it. In June, he said he was eyeing a FEMA phase-out after this year’s storm season to transfer responsibilities to the state level, which set off alarms for disasterweathered leaders like Mayor Saffo and North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, who’ve strongly advised otherwise.

In a recent letter to the president’s FEMA Review Council, Gov. Stein laid out how staggering numbers and loss of life can come from just one storm. “Most recently, Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, killing 107 people and causing $60 billion in damage, which is more than three times the cost of our previous most expensive storm. These weather events are getting bigger, wetter, and more damaging,” Gov. Stein wrote. “We must have a dependable plan for response and recovery.”

The governor acknowledged critics’ impressions of FEMA— particularly with response dynamics and red tape—but insisted scrapping the agency isn’t the way. “There is no doubt that FEMA could be better and faster. But let us improve it, not abolish it. As governor of a state vulnerable to hurricanes, flooding, and other extreme weather, I know we cannot afford for FEMA to be eliminated.”

Mayor Saffo, too, sees areas for improvement, like with the speed of financial help when it’s needed most, right after disaster strikes.

“I respect a genuine effort to look at what is most efficient and practical in terms of facilitating recovery,” the Wilmington mayor said. “But I still will say that our local and state capabilities must be supplemented by access to federal resources. Without it, we’re not going to get on our feet as quickly, and it may take years for some of this recovery to take place.” He added that the city remains in the recovery stages from years-old storm damages, as the Atlantic promises more in the future, and that it’s hard to imagine localities or states without federal partnership and wellrehearsed intergovernmental response.

Gov. Stein’s letter outlined ways to improve FEMA, starting with quicker money distribution. He said the FEMA Review Council should, for one, consider recommending an initial, immediate tranche of funds for disaster-hit areas, instead of the post-disaster paperwork and processing that can take weeks or months to approve.

He also suggested the use of FEMA funds for permanent repairs, as the current system only allows them for rebuilding structures to temporary or pre-storm condition, which he noted can cost more than permanent solutions. “We should be able to use FEMA funds to finish the job in one effort, build back stronger, and save taxpayer money in the process….” wrote Gov. Stein, who also proposed streamlining processes for survivors. He said it makes most sense to keep what’s working at the federal level, and amend what isn’t, so each state doesn’t have the costly challenge of reinventing emergency management.

“Investing in resilience and future-proofing our communities just makes fiscal sense,” Gov. Stein told the review council. He cited a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report that found every dollar spent on resilience and disaster preparedness saves $13 in aftermath costs.

Speaking just of Atlantic storms, North Carolina has a history of devastation from the coast to the mountains, a conversation far from limited to 2024’s record-setting Helene. For Wilmington, recent history includes 2018’s deadly Hurricane Florence, the state’s then-most expensive storm that put onuses on local government fund balances at the outset of recovery—an unsustainable, annual worry.

Viewing the fearsome trends of worsening annual storm seasons, officials argue that all levels of government need to remain seated together.

“If you lose one of the legs off that stool, it’s going to fall,” said Mayor Saffo.