ORLANDO, Fla.—A major conference to help communities prepare for hurricane season kicked off Monday without the agency that coordinates federal disaster response.
Federal Emergency Management Agency representatives attributed their absence at the National Hurricane Conference to the partial government shutdown.
The conference is one of the largest aimed at helping communities prepare for the Atlantic hurricane season, which begins June 1. More than 1,800 local and state emergency managers registered to attend, along with representatives from other federal agencies, nonprofits such as the Salvation Army and companies such as Publix and Home Depot. The conference concludes Thursday.
“Due to the ongoing funding lapse, FEMA cannot participate in National Hurricane Conference trainings,” a statement provided to Inside Climate News says. “These trainings and collaborations are vital for preparedness, and FEMA regrets that we cannot engage as we have in previous years. This shutdown directly impacts our ability to support communities when it matters most.”
FEMA is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down for more than a month as members of Congress fight over a spending agreement and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
FEMA itself has been in turmoil since President Donald Trump early in his second term called for drastic change at the agency and said states should be more involved in disaster response.
His administration pushed out acting administrator Cameron Hamilton last May after Hamilton told Congress that FEMA should not be eliminated. Hamilton’s successor, David Richardson, resigned a few months later after what Republicans and Democrats characterized as a lack of responsiveness to the deadly July 4 floods in the Texas Hill Country. Karen Evans, a political appointee whose background is in cybersecurity and national security, stepped in Dec. 1 as acting administrator.
A report from the FEMA Review Council, appointed to consider how to reform the agency, also remains overdue. Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management and a member of the council, told journalists during a briefing at the conference that the report was on hold because of the partial shutdown.
“At the end of the day we’re at a natural evolutionary standpoint for the next evolution of emergency management,” he said. “As much as we’re broken, we’re still the best emergency management program in the world.”
Guthrie said FEMA’s absence gave state and local governments an opportunity to step up.
“Their absence here does not break the conference,” he said. “The president certainly asked for states and local governments to do more.”
At the conference, attendees heard from Michael Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, about new means of communicating forecasts to help improve the response to storms. There were presentations on the nine-year recovery in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria and the rebuilding in Jamaica from Hurricane Melissa, which struck the island last year. Another session focused on how federal policy changes may affect other agencies engaged in disaster response.
Brennan expressed concern that some Americans may be slower this year to prepare after last year’s season left the U.S. relatively unscathed. It was the first time in a decade with no landfalling hurricane here. The only named storm that threatened land was Chantal, which swirled ashore July 6 as a tropical storm near Litchfield Beach, South Carolina, causing less than $500 million in damage.
“It doesn’t really matter what any seasonal forecast says,” he told journalists during the briefing. “You have to be prepared as if you’re going to be affected every year because that risk is there.”
Jeremy Knighton, assistant fire chief of emergency management in Asheville, North Carolina, told Inside Climate News that FEMA’s absence from the conference was a loss.
“There’s always going to be a level of uncertainty,” he said. “But the uncertainty around FEMA, it just adds to the complexity of an already complex event.”
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Amy Green covers the environment and climate change from Orlando, Florida. She is a mid-career journalist and author whose extensive reporting on the Everglades is featured in the book MOVING WATER, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, and podcast DRAINED, available wherever you get your podcasts. Amy’s work has been recognized with many awards, including a prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award and Public Media Journalists Association award.
