Trump wants to ‘overhaul’ FEMA. What to know about the agency’s role in the Philly region

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President Donald Trump said while visiting an area of North Carolina damaged by Hurricane Helene that his administration plans on “fundamentally changing,” “overhauling” or even “terminating” the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in favor of sending funding to states to run disaster response alone.

“FEMA has been a very big disappointment,” Trump said. “They cost a tremendous amount of money. It’s very bureaucratic, and it’s very slow.”

The president issued an executive order Friday creating a council to perform a year-long review of the agency’s recent disaster responses, comparing its responses to those of states and the private sector. His press secretary clarified to reporters that the executive order would not abolish the agency — which the president would need approval from Congress to do.

“Really since the agency was founded there have been calls for the agency to be reformed,” said Samantha Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. But the agency already sends a “significant portion” of disaster response funding to states — and plays a key role in helping communities respond to disasters that stretch the capacity of state governments, she said.

“When you have a disaster that is so big that your state doesn’t have the resources to meet the needs at the local level, we have to turn to and rely on the federal government,” Montano said.

Here’s a look at the role FEMA plays in the Philadelphia region.

What does FEMA do?

During a disaster, such as a flood, earthquake or wildfire, FEMA can help communities respond, for example by sending out emergency warnings, deploying search and rescue teams, setting up temporary shelters or helping with evacuations, Montano said.

“FEMA is involved in helping with both the response, so immediate life-saving measures, and the recovery from disaster — putting everything back together again,” she said.

Helping with recovery can mean providing funding to state and local governments to clean up debris or repair roads and bridges. FEMA also provides financial assistance directly to families affected by disasters.

During non-disaster times, FEMA provides grants to help state and local governments prepare for disasters and reduce their risk, for example by buying communications equipment, writing emergency plans and running community response training programs, Montano said.

The agency is also the main flood insurance provider in the United States, through its National Flood Insurance Program, which is sold by private insurance companies.

Flood insurance and requirements to elevate buildings in floodplains

More than 270,000 households and property owners in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey hold flood insurance policies through the National Flood Insurance Program, with a total coverage amount of over $71 billion, according to FEMA data. In Philadelphia, there are more than 3,600 active FEMA flood insurance policies, with a total coverage amount of close to $1 billion.

FEMA also influences local building standards within floodplains through its insurance program, to protect new construction from floods and prevent development from making floods worse. In order for residents to have access to the National Flood Insurance Program, a community must meet minimum floodplain management standards, including a requirement that new structures built in high-risk flood zones be elevated above certain flood levels.

FEMA incentivizes even stricter development standards and flood protection policies through an optional program that provides flood insurance discounts. The city of Philadelphia does not participate in this program yet, but has said it plans to join as early as this year.

$6 billion to help governments and families in the Philly region recover from disasters

In the past 10 years, FEMA has distributed a total of over $6 billion to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware following disasters, according to FEMA data and disaster summaries on the agency’s website. This money has included financial assistance for families, funding for state and local governments to clean up and rebuild infrastructure, and grants for improving resilience in the long term.

Under disaster declarations related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the three states received a total of over $5 billion in assistance to households, aid to local governments and hazard mitigation grants.

After the remnants of Hurricane Ida in 2021, more than 45,000 households in New Jersey and more than 43,000 households in Pennsylvania — most of them in Philadelphia — registered for FEMA assistance, receiving a total of more than $380 million.

FEMA’s assistance for individuals and households provides money for families to repair homes that were damaged in a disaster, to pay for temporary housing while they’re displaced and to replace some necessary personal possessions, like appliances or cars. But it’s not meant to compensate a household for all losses sustained during a disaster — it’s only intended to meet households’ basic needs during recovery.

Bureaucratic hurdles frustrate disaster survivors

Trump’s characterization of FEMA as “very bureaucratic” and “very slow” is similar to how many disaster survivors experience applying for assistance from the agency.

A year after the remnants of Hurricane Ida inundated homes and roadways in the Philadelphia region, Norristown father Eric Fagan told WHYY that he was still waiting to receive FEMA assistance, despite losing nearly everything he owned in the flood. Months after initially applying to FEMA, Fagan said he was told to apply through a different agency.

“I don’t have daily access to printers and scanners. So getting this paperwork back and forth can be very, very busy and taxing,” Fagan said at the time. “That paperwork alone, it takes a lot out of you.”

Another Ida survivor, Roger Hamilton, did receive some FEMA assistance, but it wasn’t enough to cover the repairs needed to restore his Upper Roxborough home. Hamilton said the agency was “harder to deal with than the flood.”

Some disasters don’t get FEMA relief

Tropical Storm Isaias damaged at least 2,000 residential buildings in nine Pennsylvania counties, including hundreds of homes in Philadelphia. But when the state asked FEMA for help responding to the disaster, the agency denied the state’s request for a disaster declaration. That meant residents of Philadelphia’s flood-prone Eastwick neighborhood were forced to recover without FEMA assistance.

The agency determined the storm damage was not beyond the capabilities of the state, local governments and volunteer groups to handle, so federal help was not needed. But the state government did not have a dedicated fund to give grants to households whose homes were damaged.

“Nobody was coming to help,” Victor Jackson, an Eastwick resident and member of Eastwick United CDC, said in 2022. Eastwick United joined disaster relief organizations and city agencies to form an Unmet Needs Roundtable, which coordinated volunteers to repair homes, and launched a grant program to help residents recover.

FEMA has denied eight other federal disaster declaration requests from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware in the past 10 years, including severe storms, snowstorms and floods, according to FEMA data.

But even when FEMA has approved disaster declaration requests, the agency’s assistance has flowed unequally along race and class lines. An NPR investigation in 2019 found that white Americans and those with more wealth often benefited more from FEMA post-disaster aid, including in the form of buyouts, than households of color and those with less wealth.

‘More that could be done’ to improve the agency’s response

In his comments last week, Trump said disaster response should be handled solely by states and that FEMA’s involvement “just complicates it.”

Calls to eliminate red tape for disaster survivors trying to access recovery money from FEMA are nothing new, Montano said.

Last year, the agency announced changes to its Individual Assistance program that included expanding eligibility and simplifying the application process. Montano would like to see FEMA raise the cap on how much an individual can receive through this program and further broaden eligibility.

“There’s certainly more that could be done to make FEMA’s work more effective and efficient and equitable,” she said.

But Montano worries Trump’s review of the agency could have a different result. Project 2025 by the conservative Heritage Foundation proposes relocating FEMA to a different department and shifting some costs of disaster prevention and response to states.

“Is the goal to meet the needs of disaster survivors? Is the goal to actually minimize our risk?” Montano said. “Or are we just shifting responsibility onto the states, minimizing funding that we’re putting into our emergency management system?”

FEMA did not respond to a request for comment.