Since taking office two months ago, President Trump has spoken of the possibility of shutting down the Federal Emergency Management Agency, giving disaster money to the states and letting them handle cleanup and recovery.
The needs of tornado victims in Mississippi, including Walthall County and southeastern Pike County, will be a good indicator of whether this is a good idea.
The president wants to reduce the size of the federal government. With FEMA, though, he will have to decide whether it’s more important to eliminate a federal agency — one admittedly with a mixed record of performance — or to maintain a federal presence in disaster relief.
Given the damage in Walthall County, hit by two tornadoes on Saturday, one of which traveled an estimated 70 miles on the ground, a continued federal presence seems to be the wiser, necessary course.
Federal assistance dates back at least a century. In 1927, after the Mississippi River levee broke north of Greenville and flooded the Delta, things were so bad that Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover organized relief for the thousands of people affected. His success helped get him elected president a year later.
It just seems unthinkable that any president or any Congress, which would have to approve a shutdown of FEMA, would be willing to take the federal government out of direct disaster relief. What else do we send people to Washington for if not to marshal aid for those at a low point?
Yes, the feds could simply send money to a state when trouble strikes. But it makes sense that when assistance comes from multiple directions, the services delivered will be more thorough. In recent years, disaster relief comes from FEMA, state emergency agencies and the many invaluable volunteer contributions.
There’s no quick fix for those who have lost everything. But the multiple assistance efforts, including large amounts of aid still to be delivered, at least means that the tornado victims have not been forgotten.
In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves said the state will apply for FEMA aid as it continues to make damage assessments. He believes it’s likely that residents in the hard-hit areas will qualify for assistance directly from FEMA, and that the state also will get federal money to repair public buildings and infrastructure.
The president of the Walthall County Board of Supervisors told Mississippi Today that the tornado damage in the county was worse than he’d ever seen, in terms of the number of destroyed homes. That’s a high bar, given the county’s experience with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and multiple tornadoes in 2020.
It’s easy to criticize FEMA, but some states are better prepared for disasters than others. It would seem callous and wrong for Washington to shrug its shoulders in such a situation, sending money but nothing else.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
