Ron Grindstaff, right, comforts his wife, Marie, as they remove belongings from their home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Sept. 30, 2024 in Old Fort, North Carolina. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
If anyone’s earned the right to complain about the federal government’s response to disasters, whether they be natural or manmade, it’s residents and business owners in south Louisiana.
Yet even the most jaded of folks has to acknowledge the Federal Emergency Management Agency has improved since its widespread shortcomings in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina. You might recall then President George W. Bush commended FEMA Administrator Michael Brown for doing a “heck of a job” with storm recovery, despite thousands of people left stranded in flooded New Orleans.
The “Brownie” debacle continues to haunt FEMA, which is by no means perfect today. But the agency seems to learn more with each disaster, and it’s called upon regularly for help in response to more frequent severe weather events, aging protective infrastructure and other factors that make us more vulnerable to climate change.
Logistics are typically FEMA’s weak spot when it comes to getting recovery resources to where they’re needed most. This can be attributed, in part, to calamities that are increasingly unprecedented in scope, location or both. Add in communication system breakdowns, and situations that are already challenging can grow worse.
What doesn’t help FEMA during such times of crisis is when disinformation is purposefully spread, such as the outright lies former President Donald Trump has repeated while on the campaign trail in recent days. Worse yet, some Republican officials have parroted their presidential nominee’s false claims.
Chief among Trump’s factual departures has been that FEMA has stolen disaster relief money to house and care for immigrants. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has reiterated the claim, which he knows isn’t true because he was in Congress in 2022 when members approved FEMA using money from Customs and Border Protection to help cities respond to the immigration crisis.
Just reiterating: Congress, which includes a Republican-controlled House, legally moved money from one agency to another – it wasn’t stolen.
Trump has also asserted that families will only receive $750 total to address their needs after Helene. That is the amount of the initial relief disbursement to storm victims to address immediate needs, such as food and medicine. Additional FEMA assistance is provided based on documented need, yet Trump knowingly shared incorrect information.
If he was simply unaware, it’s a level of disconnect on par with the Bush-Brownie era. But Trump’s constant banging of his dissonant drum makes obvious his intent is to spread the “fake news” he constantly accuses the legitimate media of doing.
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy also couldn’t let a disaster go by without placing best in crass. During an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Louisiana’s junior Republican senator berated Vice President Kamala Harris for discussing undermet needs for feminine hygiene products.
“The people of Appalachia right now don’t give a function about tampons,” Kennedy said “They need water. They need to get out.”
Not all GOP members have chosen to be as deliberately obtuse as Kennedy, however.
Some Republican state leaders have gone on the record to refute Trump’s claims, probably at their own political risk. They’ve even gone the extra mile to praise the Biden administration’s response to Helene.
Trump’s willful disinformation campaign is especially callous as Florida stares down the barrel of Hurricane Milton, which is expected to bring a devastating storm surge to a large portion of its west coast. Once the storm passes – when history shows the most lives are lost – accurate details on recovery resources are even more critical.
But facts are not something we should depend on from Trump, who has shown he has no moral concerns with avoiding the truth to take advantage of people who face life-threatening situations. One need only look at how he and the conservative super majority he placed on the U.S. Supreme Court did away with reproductive health care rights for further proof.
It’s been said that crisis breeds leaders. Abraham Lincoln immediately comes to mind, along with Churchill and Gandhi.
In the case of Donald Trump, the tumult of the 2024 hurricane season has simply reinforced what we already knew: He’s in it for himself — and himself alone.
This columsn was originally published in Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.