RI Has Gotten $163M In Disaster Aid Since 2003: What If FEMA Was Cut?

RHODE ISLAND — Federal programs that have funneled millions of dollars into Rhode Island for disaster recovery could be at risk if President Donald Trump follows through on his suggestions to do away with FEMA.

While Trump’s executive order doesn’t eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency, it does “begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA,” he said in January when he visited hurricane-ravaged North Carolina.

The order creates the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council that will, among other things, look at “serious concerns of political bias in FEMA.”

A new Carnegie Disaster Dollar Database breaks down federal disaster aid by state from September 2003 to January 2025. The total includes money under programs managed by FEMA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Rhode Island has received $163.3 million during the period, including for:

• $37.1 million for severe storms and flooding in 2010
• $9.5 million for severe storms, flooding, and tornadoes in 2023.

The report showed hurricane-prone states Louisiana, Florida and Texas — which have received federal disaster funding during the period in the amounts of nearly $47 billion, $28 billion and $22 billion, respectively — would be hit the hardest by any reductions in aid.

Other states that depended on large sums of FEMA money in recent emergencies include New York, which received about $28.5 billion, and New Jersey, which received $8.6 billion. California received nearly $7.6 billion, almost entirely for wildfires.

It’s unclear what reform would look like and if federal spending would be reduced. Some reform advocates have proposed doling out federal disaster money in block grants to states and leaving it to them to decide where to best spend the money. Critics cite the potential for fraud without federal oversight and the risk that states will use the money for programs over disaster relief.

“Up to now, when there is a disaster, the government responds. They clean up debris, they rebuild the schools, they run shelters, they clean the drinking water,” lead researcher Sarah Labowitz told Axios’ Alex Fitzpatrick.

“All of that is supported by a federal disaster relief ecosystem that spreads the risk around the country, spreads the costs around the country,” Labowitz said. “And if we stop spreading the costs around the country, then it's going to fall on states, and it's going to fall on states really unevenly.”

Katie Mears, a senior technical specialist at Episcopal Relief and Development, the aid and relief wing of the Episcopal Church, told Axios, “We understand the need for reform, but we can’t do this without support from all the different federal players.”

FEMA not only directs funding to states but also dispatches experts to states to assist in recovery. Disaster victims can be hurt significantly if reform isn’t approached “smartly” and with an unwavering commitment to the agency’s mission, according to Pete Gaynor, who ran FEMA for two years during Trump’s first term in office.

“There has been and will continue to be a departure of [senior leaders] that have been at FEMA for 25–30 years, experts at everything — they leave, and you have a freeze on hiring, or you instill fear into the workforce, that's going to hurt,” he told Axios. “And you know who it's going to hurt first? It's going to hurt the disaster survivor — that's where it hurts.”

The Trump administration earlier this year directed senior officials in FEMA’s resilience office, which helps communities prepare for potential disasters and mitigate risk, to identify employees working on “climate, environmental justice, equity and DEIA” initiatives for potential firings.

The email, shared with CNN, read: “I understand this will impact the majority of our staff. I know that this feels like a shock to many of you and is an exceedingly difficult task.”

More than 200 of FEMA’s 20,000 employees were fired, NPR reported. However, a federal judge on Thursday ordered FEMA and multiple other federal agencies to rehire the employees who were fired in the Department of Government Efficiency-led purge of federal workers.

Attempts to cut FEMA’s workforces comes as the independent Government Accountability Office warns the increasing frequency of disasters stretches FEMA’s workforce in “unprecedented ways.”

FEMA operates 33 joint field offices across the country and employs thousands of staff members who respond to disasters, and also manages long-term funding and recovery for 654 major disasters dating back many years. The agency manages hundreds of incidents every year across every U.S. state and territory, including major disasters, federal emergencies, and fire management incidents.

The number of disasters the agency manages “more than doubled in the last seven years, from 30 disasters in 2016 to 71 disasters in 2023,” the GOA said. At the same time, the average number of people deployed daily to disaster zones increased from 3,381 employees before 201 and 7,113 after 2017.

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