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Trump Administration, News
Terminate FEMA? Mr. President, Please Don’t Do It
As climate change brings more and worse natural disasters, FEMA is needed more than ever
President Trump plans to “terminate” FEMA. He announced his decision on his social media platform earlier today:
Somehow, President Trump became convinced that FEMA is incompetent and purposely limited assistance to North Carolinians following flooding in the state last year. Now, he wants to “terminate” the agency — The Federal Emergency Management Administration. Let’s hope somebody talks him out of it — or that Congress or the courts stop him from doing something stupid.
FEMA is not perfect. I recall the botched response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Over 1,800 people died, many of them unnecessarily, as FEMA was slow to respond to the disaster. George W. Bush’s FEMA director, Michael D. Brown, received much of the blame. Some argue that New Orleans has yet to recover from the storm fully.
Would things in New Orleans have been better — with fewer lives lost — if FEMA had not existed and President Bush…
