The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Cameron Hamilton, has been replaced. The shake up comes weeks before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season.
The abrupt change came the day after Cameron Hamilton testified on Capitol Hill that he did not agree with proposals to dismantle an organization that helps plan for natural disasters and distributes financial assistance.
Rural communities are scrambling after the Trump administration canceled billions in disaster grants. Many were counting on the funds for infrastructure fixes meant to withstand future disasters.
President Trump says he's thinking of getting rid of the country's disaster response agency, FEMA. States say they can't replicate what FEMA does on their own.
To help homes survive more intense disasters, FEMA has been developing recommendations for stronger building codes. The Trump Administration has pulled them back.
"People have lost everything," says FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell. More than 24,000 have already applied for assistance from FEMA, but Criswell says that number is certain to rise.
The largest chunk of funding — about $40 billion — would be for FEMA's disaster relief fund, so that it has enough money to last through the coming year. But there are requests for 16 agencies.
Nearly a month after Hurricane Helene ripped through south and east Georgia, the Federal Emergency Management Agency says it's distributed some $159 million in disaster assistance to hundreds of thousands of people.
What might sound like silly logic has become one of the most reliable ways for Southerners and even federal officials to gauge a storm's severity and identify communities most in need of immediate aid. The Waffle House Index was created by a federal emergency management official and is still used today.
Rumors, misinformation and lies about the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene have run rampant since the storm made landfall, especially around FEMA funding.
The U.S. government's top disaster relief official said Sunday that false claims and conspiracy theories about the federal response to Hurricane Helene -- spread most prominently by Donald Trump -- are "demoralizing" aid workers and creating fear in people who need recovery assistance.
There are barriers preventing many Latino farm workers in northeastern Tennessee from trying to get help, but the extended Latino community is bringing the help to them.
As Ruidoso, N.M., starts recovering from a deadly wildfire, people who survived the state's largest fire two years ago say FEMA still isn't giving them what they need.
