FEMA faces backlog of emergency aid requests as hurricane season nears

Washington Post

23-05-2025

The Federal Emergency Management Agency faces a backlog of unprocessed emergency aid requests as hurricane season approaches — a sign of how the White House's insistence that states shoulder more of the burden for disaster response is playing out at the agency, current and former FEMA officials say.
Early Thursday, the agency's daily operations briefing listed 19 pending declaration requests, the oldest from January. By Friday morning, amid pressure from governors and members of Congress, FEMA had processed 10 requests, denying two and approving eight. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), who had publicly complained about the pace of FEMA's decision-making, posted Friday on X: 'Following our discussion Wednesday, President Trump has approved multiple disaster declarations for Missouri.'
Eleven requests, the earliest filed April 1, are still pending, according to FEMA's early Friday operations briefing — a backlog that experts still consider unusual. Those pending requests include Missouri's application, filed Monday, for an emergency declaration to aid its recovery from deadly storms last week.
President Donald Trump is closely monitoring the situation in Missouri and is in contact with local officials, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Thursday. 'The Trump administration remains committed to empowering and working with state and local governments to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes,' she said.
A FEMA spokesperson said that the agency is working with state and local officials to conduct damage assessments in storm-affected areas and that decisions on emergency declaration requests are 'based on policy, not politics.'
But emergency-management experts said the backlog of unprocessed requests is abnormal and could signal that FEMA is dragging its feet. Applications for disaster declarations are made by governors to the president and, if granted, unlock a wide array of federal assistance — which can include help both responding to the initial emergency and making permanent repairs.
Slow-walking them risks leaving states in limbo, the experts said, and delays state officials from appealing denials or pursuing alternative recovery plans.
'The American people, they have an expectation that the federal government will be there for them on their worst day,' said Michael Coen, a former FEMA chief of staff in the Obama and Biden administrations. 'If that expectation needs to be adjusted, the federal government should explain what the new threshold is.'
The Trump administration has signaled that it wants states to take more responsibility for their own disaster recoveries, citing complaints that FEMA can be overly bureaucratic in responding to emergencies. An April memo from former acting FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton, obtained by The Post, recommended that the agency raise thresholds to declare fewer disasters by June 1, the start of what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted could be a busy hurricane season.
'It's quite clear for us that the lack of interest in approving federal emergency declarations is [because] they're trying to force states to handle it,' said a FEMA analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear retaliation from the agency.
FEMA's level of urgency came into question this week after powerful storms swept through Kentucky and Missouri, killing over 20 people and destroying thousands of structures. Missouri requested that FEMA authorize two types of disaster declarations: an emergency declaration, which is generally approved within days and releases up to $5 million of aid, and a major disaster declaration, which makes more money and types of federal aid available than an emergency declaration does. Kentucky also requested a major disaster declaration. All three requests are pending.
Caitlin Durkovich, a former deputy homeland security adviser at the White House under President Joe Biden, said she believed the recent storms in Missouri met the threshold for a major disaster declaration.
'We would do this in a matter of hours,' she said.
Missouri, which has faced a torrent of extreme weather in the past three months, has made three major disaster declaration requests in that span. The older two, from April, were approved only Friday.
Hawley said on Monday that 'FEMA needs to come in strong' after the storms. He has lobbied Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and Trump to release federal funds.
Hawley's office, asked whether he supported proposals to reduce the aid FEMA disburses, said he voted for the March stopgap bill that funds FEMA through September.
Coen, the former FEMA chief of staff, said the agency's decision to quickly process 10 pending requests is unusual, given the past delays, and showed the agency still responds to pressure from lawmakers and governors.
He added that some requests for disaster aid can take time to process. Federal authorities often need days or weeks to conduct damage assessments to approve a major disaster declaration, he said, and certain requests have been delayed for procedural reasons under previous administrations.
Another FEMA disaster recovery official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the agency, wrote to The Post that the agency has been hampered by staffing cuts and FEMA leadership has shown 'no sense of urgency whatsoever' in processing declaration requests.
'Even when [Hurricane] Helene hit, we didn't have 19 pending major disaster and emergency declarations,' the official said.
The agency's current backlog of 11 pending declaration requests is less unusual, the official said, though 'more typical of when a hurricane hits.'
Coen said that while FEMA scaling back its aid to states would be a significant setback for disaster recovery efforts, the agency should be clearer in its change of policy if it intends to tighten its purse.
'States have received no guidance, so states are going to continue to make requests,' Coen said.
And more extreme weather looms. As the United States headed into Memorial Day weekend, forecasters were warning that Missouri and other southern Plains states face significant storm and flooding risks over the holiday.
Hannah Natanson, Kevin Crowe and Marissa J. Lang contributed to this report.