(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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Tornadoes Just Wrecked Multiple States. Where Are Trump and FEMA? [1]
['Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling', 'Hafiz Rashid', 'Malcolm Ferguson', 'Edith Olmsted']
Date: 2025-05-19
It made no mention of potential aid application deadlines for survivors of the weekend tornadoes, though the state is reportedly in the process of seeking FEMA assistance, according to the Kentucky Lantern.
But getting the aid they need from the federal government is not a guarantee under the Trump administration. Last month, FEMA rejected North Carolina’s application for an emergency aid extension as the state grapples to recover from Hurricane Helene, a Category Four storm that killed 250 people in September. It was the deadliest hurricane in state history.
In a letter to North Carolina Governor Josh Stein in April, acting FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton said that the agency had determined that an extension with a full cost share was “not warranted.”
Like Kentucky and Missouri, North Carolina had also voted for Trump in November, but months into his presidency, residents of devastated communities are still begging the president to send relief.
Since Helene, Trump and his allies have spread unfounded conspiracies that the lead response agency has run out of money and that the Biden administration had diverted funds from FEMA to assist undocumented immigrants entering the country. (FEMA administrators have fervently and repeatedly denied this.) Conservatives, at the time, claimed that working with the White House to expedite disaster relief “seemed political” and even conspiratorially suggested that the hurricanes were a government manipulation.
Days after his inauguration, Trump pitched that it would be better to do away with FEMA altogether in favor of handing the money directly to the states, though that plan never seemed to gain traction.
Since then, Trump has actively worked to dismantle the agency. The administration has blocked states across the nation, including California and Michigan, from accessing preapproved relief. A coalition of Democratic-led states has sued the federal government, claiming that “hundreds of millions of dollars in FEMA grants” are still inaccessible.
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[1] Url:
https://newrepublic.com/post/195453/donald-trump-fema-tornadoes-wrecked-states
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