Disasterology: January 2025

This newsletter is a compilation of recent disaster ~things~ that I think are cool, important, or otherwise of interest to people who are intrigued with disaster (broadly defined). There’s a little something for everyone!

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Happy Saturday My Little Tariffs,

Heyyyyy. How y’all doin’… Want to go jump in a volcano with me? No? Okay, well then gather around. Let’s do a debrief.

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WTF Just Happened

Things were looking relatively normal at FEMA for approximately 5 minutes (jokes on us). FEMA-lifer Tony Robinson took the reins from Administrator Criswell on Inauguration Day (normal). Within 48 hours Robinson was replaced by a random Trump fanboy, Cameron Hamilton. He is completely unqualified and has a deeply disturbing Twitter account (not normal).

Meanwhile, a firehose of Executive Orders came at us. Almost every single one affects emergency management in some way at least indirectly – climate, health, immigration, national security – the gang’s all there! Climate change has started to be taken down from FEMA’s website again (the dumbest timeline). DHS has issued a directive ending the “sensitive location” policy which prevented ICE from entering schools, hospitals, and places providing disaster relief. This includes disaster community shelters, evacuation routes, aid distribution sites, and more. Time to re-write your plans and figure out how to keep undocumented people safe during your next disaster.

One that I think will affect FEMA greatly and quickly, both in terms of workforce and mission, is the Executive Order attempting to eradicate “DEI”. Hopefully, you’ve caught on that this is not about getting rid of diversity training, but instead about implementing the Trump administration and the Republican party’s belief that anyone other than white Christian heterosexual cis-men should be in a position of authority or power. This is the heart of Project 2025, and the outcome of the policies they are implementing. Do not ever forget these are deeply hateful people. The impact of the DEI Executive Order for FEMA is still unclear but, in environmental justice reporter Rachel Ramirez’s last story for CNN before being laid off (massive side eye), I noted that the implications will likely be significant given equity has been the agency’s number one strategic goal.

There are no days off under a Trump administration so by Friday we had our next major round. A DHS Directive disbanded FEMA’s National Advisory Council (the NAC), another Project 2025 recommendation. The goal here is to minimize outside influence on the agencies (bold to think the NAC had that kind of power but, okay) and ensure everything goes through political appointees (i.e., Trump loyalists). A Whole Community approach it is not.

On the same day, Trump went to North Carolina to check on the Helene recovery. While there he floated a little idea he has come up with: disbanding FEMA. Or, he says, perhaps we can settle for an overhaul. When I said we need comprehensive emergency management reform THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT. He is claiming that in the past four years FEMA has been a hinderance to managing disasters (this is not true). Rather than the federal government, Trump suggested each governor should be responsible for their own disasters (they already are?) and that bringing in people from outside the state just complicates the response. Of course, the very definition of disaster is that help is needed from outside the impacted area (often including entire states) which is why we’ve spent the past 20 years making sure we can deploy people state to state as seamlessly as possible (shout out NPG, NRF, NDRF, ICS, NIMS, EMAC). If Trump can tell me what even a single one of those acronyms means he can do whatever he wants to FEMA.

Two things to consider here. First, in the 2012 Presidential election, Mitt Romney effectively suggested the same thing Trump is recommending now. This is not just some radical far-right-wing weird Trump thing. More measured Republicans have historically just been careful to not say it too loud. As Romney learned, people of all political persuasions like getting help when disasters happen – a real inconvenience to Republican ideology. While Project 2025 does not go quite as far as eliminating FEMA, this historical context may be instructive in considering whether other Republicans will step up and prevent this.

From there Trump flew to California where he threatened to withhold recovery funding if California did not “turn on the water” (this is not how water works) and implement voter disenfranchisement policies (seems like blackmail but okay). Days ago he also just straight up lied and said he deployed the military to California and that they had turned the water “back on”. This simply did not happen??? Yesterday, however, the Corps of Engineers increased water flow from two dams despite local objections. This does not appear to have any effect on firefighting in southern California, to be clear. And, it will actually likely cause a problem later on. Western water management is an extremely complex and delicate dance with tremendous consequences.

The longest Friday of my life ended with an Executive Order to create a “Review Council” to determine future changes to FEMA including if it will continue to even exist. Hilariously, I (and others) asked the Biden administration to do something similar and was told “no” by someone very high up in the White House. (Incidentally, this is the same guy who laughed at me when I told him we need to take FEMA out of DHS to help protect the agency. *stares in this month’s DHS directives*) Nice.

The Trump administration could effectively cut FEMA off at the knees on their own. For example, Trump could simply stop signing presidential declarations. However, to actually eliminate the agency the legal consensus seems to be that Congress will need to agree.

The Council will be chaired by Kristi Noem who recently left South Dakotans on their own to manage a flood while she traveled out of state. Then when locals requested National Guard resources, she refused. She did send them to the Texas border, though. She will be joined by Pete Hegseth who has no disaster experience that I can find. As of now, four North Carolina Republicans have been put on the Council. One of them, Rep. Virginia Foxx has the distinguished honor of being one of only 11 members of Congress to vote against the supplemental Katrina aid in 2005. The other two Rep. Tim Moore and Rep. Chuck Edwards appear to have no emergency management experience whatsoever. The fourth person is Michael Whatley, the Republican National Committee chair. I have my eye on him – he is the one who has this administration’s ear. This is all to say I am not holding my breath over who else will be asked to join the Council but reporting indicates it will likely be private industry representatives.

As I told Axios, we all agree FEMA needs to be reformed and we need to grow state emergency management capacity. Not a single person on earth thinks FEMA has been perfected. The MASSIVE DIFFERENCE here is that we do not agree on the goal of the reform. I believe we should reform FEMA (and our entire emergency management system) to create a more effective, efficient, and equitable system to reduce risk and meet the needs of survivors. This is not remotely what the Trump administration and the Republican Party are looking to do. Instead, they think we should dismantle it. The way I know this is because they wrote a whole 900-page document explicitly stating their goals. They want to minimize federal spending on disasters, privatize disaster relief, and force states to go it alone. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Helping disaster survivors and minimizing risk is not anywhere in their plan!! Seriously. Like, not even once just for show!

And with that the first week of the second Trump administration comes to an end. Y’all still with me? Let’s do an early meme break as a treat.

Help. I genuinely keep forgetting his name.

Turns out, week one was quaint in comparison to week two. The Office of Management and Budget, which is now headed by the lead author of Project 2025 Russell Vought, went ahead and decided to drop a super illegal memo calling for a near-complete federal spending freeze.

Cue me standing at a construction site (have I mentioned I’m spending the month in Florida with my students building houses – a ridiculous background for me personally as the country crumbles) pulling up the goddam Stafford Act, etc. trying to figure out the impact to the US emergency management system before landing on “basically everything”. Every mitigation and preparedness grant program, at least public assistance funding if not also individual assistance, possibly the NFIP but at least their related programs, HUD grants and infrastructure money being used for mitigation and recovery, the work of all the hazard agencies, SBA loans for business, the list goes on. For us, the federal freeze represents an attempt to bring the US emergency management system to a grinding halt.

I felt like I had been jolted back to March 2020 when I spent my days on the phone with disaster journalists trying to help them figure out what the hell was going on. Not an activity I missed.

A federal judge (shout out to them) blocked the federal freeze right before it was supposed to go into effect. A bunch of states sued (shout out to them). So, this Vought character said “Okay, fine just kidding” (or something) but then the new White House Comms director tweeted “Just Kidding about the Just Kidding” (love our return to governance by tweet) and anyway now we are back to no one knowing what’s going on (that’s what you missed on Glee!). The best summary of the situation came from one of my students who noted, “everyone in America doesn’t really know what’s going on and anything could happen”. A+

The uncertainty alone has led to people losing their jobs and not being paid (fight me, NSF???). It is all very horrible. I guess what I have landed on for the moment is that I cannot confidently say that we have a working federal emergency management function.

A little thought exercise I have done for years (which many of you are not going to like for superstitious reasons so I promise I’m knocking on wood while typing) is to stop and say, “what would happen if Cascadia happened right now”. It is kind of like my own little Doomsday Clock. There are days when that scenario goes better and there are days when that scenario goes worse. I’ll let you guess where we are headed.

The best solution I can come up with at this point is that we simply are not allowed to have a disaster happen at any point in the next four years. Let’s manifest it.

Incidentally, that brings us to the horrific mid-air collision in DC. I believe strongly in waiting for the NTSB findings in these types of situations. As of this writing, it does look like the understaffing of air traffic control is relevant. This has been a known and growing problem across the country. What I do not need to wait on NTSB for is knowing that the cause is not because of hiring people who are not white men. Please be serious.

One thing I remember most from his first administration is Trump’s propensity towards cruelty in times of crisis. When asked if he would be visiting the site of the crash (a completely appropriate thing for the sitting president to do) he replied, “You want me to go swimming?”

A bunch of other terrible things have happened, many of which do affect emergency management. The full on data purge and gag order on the health agencies is of extreme concern and particularly in the context of Bird Flu. There’s concerning earthquake stuff. I’ll stop there or we’ll be here all day.

I would not anticipate the firehose of hell stopping anytime soon and we simply can’t live like this. It’s completely overwhelming to the point of making you feel immobile. One thing that has helped me process all this information quickly is understanding that everything they are doing related to emergency management falls into one of three buckets:

• First, there’s the “We Want to Stop Spending Money On Disasters” bucket. This is all the stuff related to Russell Vought – the federal freeze and the Project 2025 policy.

• Second, there’s the “We Want to Privatize Emergency Management” bucket. This is what they’re trying to do with the Review Council. (It is expected they will stack it with private sector representatives.) This is why Elon Musk is involved in this administration.

• Third, there’s the “Don’t Look Up” bucket. This is the stuff Trump is doing himself – the North Carolina and California visits. He shows up, as a hero with all the cameras, to assure his supporters he is there to help them. Meanwhile, behind the cameras, he’s selling them out to Vought and Musk (see one and two). This is Trump going to North Carolina to promise faster recovery aid while 72 hours later announcing they will stop all (?) federal recovery aid. Although there are real consequences, this part is the show.

If you read Shock Doctrine and Doppelganger this will all become very clear to you too – the Shadow Lands and Mirror World.

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MEME BREAK

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Now What?

Some seem to be finding comfort in remembering there have been many iterations of FEMA before, and there will be many iterations after. True! That doesn’t pay rent though nor does it do anything to address the violence of intentionally sabotaging the system that is supposed to keep us all safe. What is so enraging is that this is an unnecessarily bumpy road (is there even a road? Are these bumps?), and we are going to lose some (many) people along the way. That is unforgivable.

I fear we have crossed a point of no return. IAEM has sent a letter to Trump (fine) but as we know emergency management has very little political power and no meaningful lobby (bad). The FEMA that existed two weeks ago is probably gone. The question now is how can we (not them) create something better. To borrow a term from Naomi Klein, can we shock us too?

I have been including regular reminders in this newsletter about the importance of community. For me, the past two weeks have been evidence of why that is so critical. I would be completely immobilized right now if it were not for my fellow disaster folks! I think I have talked to every single person in emergency management at some point in the past two weeks! Many of those conversations have simply been to commiserate and confirm that none of us know what is happening but at least we don’t know what’s happening together. I hope you also have a community around you to go through this with but if you don’t, I would invite you to use the comment section of this newsletter in that way.

I do not know exactly what the future holds but I do know and trust that communities will come together in times of crisis and work to meet their own needs – and each other’s as best they can. I also know that those of us who are passionate about working on disasters will find ways to continue to do so. We always do.

I do want to take a moment to say thank you to those of you working at FEMA right now. I am sorry you are being put through this. Any legitimate criticism of FEMA distinguishes between the regular everyday employees of the agency and the bureaucracy and leadership. Are there a few weirdos who roam FEMA’s halls? Sure! I do believe, though, that the vast majority of people who work at FEMA are doing everything in their power to help survivors. Regardless of what the President and his little fascist buddies say, there are many more of us who see and appreciate the work you are doing. I hope you are able to continue whether at FEMA or elsewhere. Same to all the state/ local emergency managers, researchers, etc. who rely on federal funding. Your work is important. It is needed. Please do what you can to just keep moving forward.

I do also want to publicly thank Deanne Criswell for her leadership the past four years. Criswell was without question one of the most qualified people to ever run FEMA. I disagree with her on a number of issues, and I wish (as she probably does too) that more progress could have been made on equity and climate, etc. but also, she moved some mountains. She brought the agency back from the chaos of the first Trump administration and navigated the country through one disaster after the next. It isn’t possible to know how many lives have been saved by FEMA’s actions directly in the past four years, but I am positive that there are many.

It is a tricky thing to say publicly because it runs the risk of being misconstrued as minimizing impacts and ignoring the many needs that have not been met, but I think it needs to be said here anyway: I specifically have nightmares over how much worse Helene could have been were it not for Criswell’s leadership. It is one of those events that so easily could have crossed that threshold from large disaster to catastrophe. There are probably only a small handful of people who could have successfully battled that particular tsunami of disinformation and violent threats while also responding to a massive hurricane (and then another). We are all lucky that Criswell is one of them.

So, it was particularly maddening to turn on my television and see Rep. Andrew Clyde calling Administrator Criswell a “DEI hire”.

This mother—.

I’ll let Kyle Clark speak for me here because what I have to say to Rep Clyde will get me in actual trouble.

The Trump Administration and Republicans have taken to blaming everything from the LA Fires to the DC crash on “DEI”. To be clear, this is the language of segregationists. The executive order to erase diversity from the federal government and everything it touches is the implementation of segregation. For us, it has also become another manifestation of disaster denialism.

Let me clearly write out what I know those of you reading this newsletter already know. Diversity, in its many forms, makes emergency management better. We cannot do effective emergency management without a diverse profession. As the research tells us, diversity in emergency management saves lives. I, for one, will need to be dragged out by my ponytail before I cede even an inch of the space in our field that belongs to me.

You all need to do the same because women belong in emergency management. People of color belong in emergency management. Undocumented people belong in emergency management. Trans people belong in emergency management. Disabled people belong in emergency management.

None of us have a clear road map here. Influence what you can, as best as you can.

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Personal News

Weird timing but I am thrilled to share that my book Disasterology: Dispatches from The Frontlines of The Climate Crisis is being re-released as a paperback on March 4^th!! You can pre-order it here.

It is the same as the hardback with the addition of a new chapter at the end about the issue of climate migration and climate havens. I talk about both Hurricane Helene and The New Isle, the new home of the residents of Isle de Jean Charles from the Louisiana coast.

It’s never a bad time to read my book, IMO, but now is probably a particularly good time. The section titled “A Real Catastrophe Like Katrina” and the entirety of Part Five outline the disaster responses of the first Trump administration which are certainly worth a re-read. That was their testing ground.

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The End Bits

It’d be cool if you forwarded this newsletter to your friends, post it on social media, or undertake any other form of newsletter sharing you deem appropriate. I’ve heard some of you print out the memes to hang in your emergency management offices! Incredible.

In case you signed up for this newsletter without knowing who I am (a bold choice!) you can listen to this interview with me on Ologies. If you really want to dive in you can read my book Disasterology: Dispatches From The Frontlines of The Climate Crisis to catch up (here’s a USA Today review). You can order it here and get it as an audiobook here.

Other places to find me: Blog. BlueSky. Instagram. TikTok.

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