“There are some things that need to occur with FEMA, some things that need to occur to streamline the way FEMA works. But the devil is in the details,” said Lafourche Parish President Mitch Orgeron.
Overall, he likes what he sees, such as sending disaster aid as a block grant directly to the states, but Orgeron says he’s waiting for the specifics on how FEMA will implement the suggestions.
“I can tell you that if Lafourche Parish had a 50% match on anything related to Hurricane Ida, it would bankrupt Lafourche,” Orgeron said. “If they’re not providing that last resort assistance, you’re effectively not going to be able to have local government sustainable in the long run. And that's going to be the key issue.”
President Donald Trump appointed a 12-member FEMA Review Council to do a deep dive into the agency’s capabilities and operations, then come up with ideas on streamlining and economizing disaster response.
Their report was released last week and included about 150 suggestions that would simplify and speed getting money to victims and impacted communities; transfer many current federal tasks to the states; require states handle environmental impact studies and audits; raise the damage threshold for FEMA to get involved; shrink the National Flood Insurance Program, including increased involvement of private insurance; embark on a strategic review of staffing and downsize by moving employees in Washington to the regional offices.
It also said the agency should stop helping survivors secure long-term housing and focus on temporary housing and rental assistance for those whose homes were destroyed and release federal money to the states in the form of grants rather than reimbursements.
“I have heard from countless Louisiana families, small businesses, and local officials who are frustrated with how FEMA delivers relief,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson. “I applaud President Trump for establishing this review council to put FEMA back on track because Louisiana is no stranger to disasters.”
U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, was less laudatory.
“Proposals to privatize flood insurance or shift more costs to states raise serious concerns, especially as Louisiana families already face soaring insurance premiums and private insurers continue pulling out of high-risk markets,” Carter said. “If these recommendations are implemented as proposed, they risk weakening FEMA and leaving Louisiana communities even more exposed when the next storm hits.”
The panel’s suggestions — at least the ones accepted by FEMA brass and Congress — will take two to three years to fully implement. The 79-page report is going through its month-long public comment stage. Then FEMA officials will have to add specifics for how the proposals would actually work. Some of the ideas can be instituted with an executive order but most will need legislation approved by Congress.
Potential flood insurance changes
The FEMA panel wants the National Flood Insurance Program to rely more on the private sector. About a half-million Louisiana home and business owners are required to carry insurance issued through the federal government to cover damage from rising water.
But the rates of the federally subsidized policies have not kept up with the risks of flooding, leaving NFIP about $20 billion in debt and at a real risk of collapsing altogether.
One issue to consider, said state Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple, is that very few companies write flood insurance in Louisiana. Temple testified before the Council.
On the other hand, private insurers have access to modeling tools that more accurately reflect risk and better recognize mitigation, such as house elevation and higher levees, that could be reflected in their premium rates.
“Today, there is not enough capacity in the private market to transition policyholders away from the NFIP, and significant work remains if we want to build the capital and market capacity needed to do so over time,” Temple said. “The most important steps we can take center on long-term, consistent coordination among local, parish and state agencies to invest in community and coastal mitigation projects that measurably reduce risk.”
Post-disaster response could shift
Changes to the three main post-disaster relief programs will need legislative authority to deliver a major portion of the federal grants to local and state governments within 30 days.
To accomplish that timeline, the Council recommended calculations include variables like the size of the hurricane and impact on local communities to come up with an estimate that can be paid much faster than the current process of figuring out how much to pay after lengthy damage assessments.
The task force also suggested raising the threshold by more than 50% before FEMA gets involved. About 29% of the disasters declared between 2012 and 2025 wouldn’t have qualified.
Sitting on the coast, with receding marshes bringing a storm’s fury further inland, Louisiana’s disasters tend to be worse than most, said Louisiana National Guard Brigadier General Jason P. Mahfouz, who is director of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
“I've looked at nearly every major disaster declaration we’ve had for the last 10 years, and we would qualify even under the new per capita threshold,” Mahfouz said.
State and parish emergency managers are analyzing the programmatic changes recommended in the report and applying the new variables to the existing one to give legislators and state officials a better understanding of “what position that we would be in and whether that can be an advantage or disadvantage,” he said.
Mahfouz said he wasn’t surprised by what he saw in the report. And he noted that the guidelines that reduced the federal footprint in disasters could be overridden by the president acting on circumstances of a particular storm, tornado, earthquake, wildfire or other disaster.
Mark Cooper, who was a member of the task force, said the panel’s goal was to make it easier. For instance, disaster survivors find help spread across 14 programs, requiring the individual to fill out 14 different applications with the same information.
“And we thought ‘how can we do it so it's just a single program and give it to the state so they can get it to the individuals quicker?” said Cooper, a Baton Rouge consultant who headed GOSHEP under Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal and was chief of staff to Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards.
“Louisiana is going to have to do certain things. If they don’t have the staffing, they need to look at making those arrangements, going either through a nonprofit or through a for-profit agency to see if they can support like individual assistance, for example,” or seeking help from other states, Cooper said. “There's a need for FEMA, especially at the federal level for catastrophic disasters, but pushing more of the responsibility down to the FEMA regions and to the states to get things done quicker and more effectively.”
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