(source links following)
Just when I started going through the Department of Homeland Security section of Project 2025, tropical cyclone Debby hit Georgia. And it hit Georgia hard.
Areas along the coast and even inland that have never flooded before, flooded. Storm water systems failed to handle the amount of rain that fell, storm water lagoons overflowed, and sewer lift stations were overrun resulting in raw sewage spills in several areas. Roadways were flooded, or complete destroyed when earthen dams failed. Entire neighborhoods in Chatham, Bryan, Liberty, Effingham, Bulloch, and other counties watched the water creep up; sometimes it stopped, sometimes it didn’t.
Currently, FEMA is working with GEMA (Georgia Emergency Management Agency), assessing the damage and determining whether a Major Disaster declaration is warranted for the state and impacted counties. Some folk thinks this means calling our Congressional reps or the governor or other persons of power and telling them to declare a disaster so we can get on with our lives.
It doesn’t work that way.
How a disaster declaration is determined
How FEMA determines whether to recommend the President declare a disaster is controlled by law. Specifically, the Stafford Act.
According to documentation I found at the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA, yeah EMA is a thing):
Two thresholds must be met under the Stafford Act, a state threshold and a county threshold. These thresholds are based on a pre-determined legal formula that disaster damages must exceed. The formula uses population of the jurisdiction as determined in the last official U.S. Census which is then entered to multiply population by $3.89 per capita for counties and $1.55 per capita for the state. The state threshold equates to about $9.8 million. The minimum project amount is $3,320.00, and the small project threshold is $132,800.00. These figures are for FY 2021.
To determine whether a threshold will be met, the local government and TEMA partner in an informal survey (“windshield survey”) to estimate the damages incurred in the jurisdiction. This estimate is collected by the state to determine the total damages of all jurisdictions involved in the event and whether the combined amounts may exceed the threshold amounts. When the estimate is near or over the threshold amounts, the Governor may request FEMA to provide preliminary damage assessment (PDA) teams or federal officials who do a more thorough review with state authorities to make the official determination. The PDA is used to determine whether federal disaster funds will be provided.
Though this describes the Tennessee declaration process in 2021, the same process works identically in states like Georgia in 2024, except the per capita value is adjusted every year based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The same index is also used to adjust the per capita threshold to determine whether FEMA covers 75% of the costs, or 90% of the costs—the latter primarily focused on major disasters in more impoverished areas.
For 2024, the state per capita value is $1.84 per person; the county per capita value is $4.60 per person. The small project minimum is $3,900, and the large project has a minimum of $1,037,000. For Debby’s impact in Georgia, according to a CEMA (Chatham Emergency Management Agency) Facebook video, the Georgia state per capita threshold is at $20 million, and the Chatham county per capita threshold is at $1.3 million.
The GEMA damage assessment page for Debby currently shows at least 52 homes have suffered damage, and one home has been completely destroyed. However, this value hasn’t changed in a week, so we can safely assume the numbers are much higher. Early estimates put the total damages in Georgia at over a billion dollars. By all accounts, Georgia should easily pass the threshold for being a Major Disaster, and homeowners, renters, and other individuals should have access to FEMA assistance.
This is now, FEMA in 2024. So what would happen with FEMA under Project 2025?
If the recommendations in Project 2025 are implemented, there’s a very good chance the Disaster threshold for Georgia couldn’t be met. And even if it were, the state would bear the brunt of providing the financial assistance.
Project 2025 does Debby
The section covering FEMA in Project 2025 is in the chapter covering the recommendations related to the Department of Homeland Security, since FEMA is a component of DHS. The chapter was authored by Ken Cuccinelli.
Cuccinelli is a former Virginia Attorney General, presidential candidate, and the de facto acting Deputy of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump.
You might remember Cuccinelli as the guy who came up with the idea of sending camouflaged agents in tactical gear in unmarked vans to grab protesters off the street in Portland in 2020. He’s also the guy who coldly blamed the migrant whose body was shown in a photograph next to his dead baby daughter along the banks of the Rio Grande.
Cuccinelli’s recommendations for changes to FEMA isn’t a particularly large section, but the suggestions would upend access to disaster funds.
In his view, the adjustment amount for the per capita threshold has not kept up with inflation, and should be significantly increased. Either that, or some deduction be applied to make it more difficult for states to get a disaster declaration.
He also proposes to change the ratio of federal/state assistance. For ‘smaller’ disasters (and he doesn’t define what he means by smaller), the ratio should be FEMA covering 25% instead of 75%, and the state handling the rest. It’s only with ‘truly catastrophic’ disasters (again, he doesn’t define what makes a ‘truly catastrophic’ disaster), does the FEMA share rise to a maximum of 75%.
Under the Stafford Act, FEMA has the authority to adjust the per capita indicator for damages, which creates a threshold under which states and localities are not eligible for public assistance. FEMA should raise the threshold because the per capita indicator has not kept pace with inflation, and this over time has effectively lowered the threshold for public assistance and caused FEMA’s resources to be stretched perilously thin. Alternatively, applying a deductible could accomplish a similar outcome while also incentivizing states to take a more proactive role in their own preparedness and response capabilities. In addition, Congress should change the cost-share arrangement so that the federal government covers 25 percent of the costs for small disasters with the cost share reaching a maximum of 75 percent for truly catastrophic disasters.
Cuccinelli also recommends privatizing flood insurance, because the federal government is subsidizing the cost of the insurance with the National Insurance Flood Program (NIFP). Of course, the impact on this change would mean substantially higher flood insurance rates, or even areas where no flood insurance is provided even though needed—similar to areas of Florida where folks struggle to find affordable home insurance.
Cuccinelli also recommends eliminating FEMA grants for preparedness. This would include elimination of Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grants, including Flood Mitigation Assistance. As we learned with Debby, our area has a lot of work ahead of us in order to mitigate the impacts of the climate-changed hurricanes. According to Cuccinelli, Georgia and other states would be on our own in preventing future disasters.
The problem is many communities might not have enough money to prevent future disasters, because they’re too broke trying to fix the last one that came along. Then disaster costs just become a never ending cycle of recovering from one disaster just in time for another, and no end in sight.
States not to flood in
Today, in 2024, the whole point of FEMA and the concept of federal assistance in disasters is that few states are capable of easily handling a major disaster, and no state is capable of handling multiple major disasters in a year. By providing assistance at the federal level, the cost of disasters is spread out across the entire country, lessening the adverse impacts on any one region or state.
The federal government has become the helping hand to ensure that the people impacted by the disaster can recover as quickly as possible. All people, in all states. Remove that helping hand, and we get a patchwork of support: one state stepping up to help people, while another state just lets its people drown.
If this sounds familiar, it’s what’s happening today with healthcare. Some states ensure everyone has access to healthcare, while other states don’t.
People living across a state line from each other but impacted by the same disaster could receive drastically different help. Does this sound fair to you?
2024 FEMA or Project 2025 FEMA?
If you look at the list of current FEMA Major Disaster declarations, you’ll note that it is primarily made up of Republican-led states such as Texas, Florida, Iowa, Arkansas, and Kentucky. Most likely by next week, Georgia will be added to this list.
Many of these states appear in the disaster lists every single year. These are the states that would be most adversely impacted by the suggestions Cuccinelli makes in Project 2025.
I wonder how the people in Georgia would react if told our property and other taxes would have to increase significantly because we’re on our own in case of another disaster? Or that we may or may not be able to get flood insurance, but if we do, it would cost twice as much? And I wonder how the people in flooded homes who don’t have insurance would feel being told that sorry, there’s no help for them? That their flooded home is no one’s problem but their own because they live in Georgia, but the folks in Vermont get help because they live in Vermont?
Well, this isn’t going to happen with Debby, because we still have 2024’s FEMA. Let’s hope we never have to face disasters with Project 2025’s FEMA, or face another administration that employs a Project 2025 author like Ken Cuccinelli.
We need federal coverage of disasters. It is inherently unfair to penalize people living in a state because of the actions, or inactions, of their state leaders. Project 2025 waves the US flag and talks about the American way, but it isn’t the American way—it isn’t right—for people to suffer harm solely because of where we live.
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Sources for this story
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/stafford-act
https://www.tn.gov/tema/recover/the-federal-declaration-process2.html
https://www.fema.gov/vi/node/445345
https://www.fema.gov/assistance/public/tools-resources/per-capita-impact-indicator
https://www.facebook.com/ChathamEMA/videos/2000493710408757
https://damage-assessment-gema-soc.hub.arcgis.com/
https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/environment/article291119020.html
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/politics/ken-cuccinelli-drowned-father-daughter-fault/index.html
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/declarations
