President Trump on Friday surveyed the damage from the catastrophic floods in Texas and sought to reassure residents that his administration is doing everything it can to help. “The first lady and I are here in Texas to express the love and support and the anguish of our entire nation in the aftermath of this really horrific and deadly flood,” Trump said. “Nobody has any idea how and why a thing like this could happen.”
With questions still swirling about whether the deaths and destruction could have been avoided or mitigated, Trump is reportedly backing away from the idea of eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Citing an unnamed senior White House official, The Washington Post’s Natalie Allison reports that “no official action is being taken to wind down FEMA, and that changes in the agency will probably amount to a ‘rebranding’ that will emphasize state leaders’ roles in disaster response.”
Trump has long criticized the agency, and he has called for an overhaul of disaster response that shifts emphasis to state and local governments. “Federal policy must rightly recognize that preparedness is most effectively owned and managed at the State, local, and even individual levels, supported by a competent, accessible, and efficient Federal Government,” a March executive order said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem this week reiterated her own call for an overhaul of the agency, even as search and recovery efforts continue in Texas. “This entire agency needs to be eliminated as it existed and remade into a responsive agency,” she said on Wednesday. “Federal Emergency Management should be state and locally led, rather than how it has operated for decades.”
Some have questioned that approach, arguing that the only federal government has the resources necessary to respond to major disasters and that it may not make sense for individual states to build up large-scale disaster response capabilities. “It doesn't make sense for each state to have a fully staffed Emergency Response Team," North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein told CNBC this week. "Because they may not have a storm for five years or 10 years, but we know the country will. So let's have that expertise in the federal government.”
FEMA has also come under fire this week because of reports that the Department of Homeland Security under Noem’s new budget restrictions waited 72 hours before allowing the deployment of FEMA search and rescue teams.
But on Friday, Trump praised the FEMA response in Texas. “We have some good people running FEMA. It’s about time, right? We got some good ones,” he said. “They failed us in North Carolina, but when we got in on January 20, they fixed it up in time.”
The death toll from the flooding has risen to 121, and about 160 people remain missing.