Hurricane season is no joke to Floridians, Mr. FEMA director
Acting FEMA Director David Richardson, named in early May to run the crucial national disaster management agency, reportedly said he was surprised to learn that the U.S. has a hurricane season. That's according news reports based on staffers present at a briefing on Monday to discuss the hurricane season, which runs from June 1-Nov. 30.
A Homeland Security spokesperson quickly tried to clean up the situation, saying Richardson was just joking. Maybe so, but that's one clunker of a joke down here in the hurricane zone.
Floridians live nervously every year through an increasingly scary hurricane season. We know there's nothing to laugh about, especially considering the most recent batch of more intense and wetter hurricanes.
So as Florida prepares for yet another active hurricane season, Richardson, head of the top emergency rescue agency, thinks it's amusing to feign ignorance about the season's very existence.
This year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, we have reason to worry. This hurricane season activity is expected to be above normal, with 13 to 19 named storms and three to five major hurricanes predicted. Blame a confluence of factors, including warmer than average ocean temperatures, forecasts for weak wind shear and the potential for higher activity from the West African Monsoon, a primary starting point for Atlantic hurricanes.
All of these elements tend to favor tropical storm formation, the agency said in a news release.
Back to Richardson's disturbing 'joke.' He's a former Marine and Homeland Security official with no experience in emergency management and who is stepping into a battered FEMA. The agency has lost a quarter of its workforce. Richardson's predecessor, Cameron Hamilton, was forced out after expressing public support for FEMA's mission — an apparent contradiction to President Donald Trump's stance on reducing the size of the agency.
Under the Trump administration's 'Big Beautiful Bill,' there are plans to cut $646 million from FEMA and reduce its long-term disaster recovery programs, with responsibility shifting to states. And yet Richardson reportedly told employees FEMA should handle this year's hurricanes the same way it did last year.
'The FEMA system is a broken system that, when fixed, will return power to state emergency management directors and make America safe again,' Homeland Security head, Kristi Noem, recently told a Congressional panel. Noem runs FEMA. However, critics on the panel warned that the cuts would weaken disaster readiness and shift an unsustainable burden to local governments.
Also, Floridians know there can be drawbacks to a local response: When an entire area is hit hard by a hurricane, we are all incapacitated, including the local government. At those times, we need federal aid via FEMA, parachuted in and self-sustaining.
Richardson may have been joking, but who will the joke be on if 'the Big One' strikes Florida?
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Scientific American
8 hours ago
- Scientific American
Strong Support for NASA and Project Artemis Will Advance the U.S.
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But in the aftermath of President Trump signing the ' One Big Beautiful Bill,' which did reintegrate certain funds for Project Artemis, Congressional appropriations committees have continued to push back against the administration's myriad cuts to NASA, which for the space agency's science unit alone was a 47 percent reduction to approximately $3.9 billion. The Senate committee's bill kept NASA science funding, integral to the support of Artemis and its mission, roughly at their current levels, while the House draft halved the cuts proposed by the White House. The Senate appropriations committee also firmly rejected the president's original proposal to terminate Project Artemis's Space Launch System and Orion Spacecraft after the conclusion of the Artemis III mission. This conflict and dizzying back and forth regarding America's moonshot project suggests a question: Are we committed to Artemis and the broader goal of understanding space? 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This would effectively kill the program that President Trump championed with his initial space policy directive. Congress did ultimately provide funding for additional Artemis missions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but it remains to be seen whether that reflects a sustained change in the administration's commitment. The success of Artemis requires extended support, not preemptively phasing out critical mission components or funding for NASA's incredibly valuable science missions. Artemis and NASA's science programs contribute an extraordinary amount toward America's technological might, so funding shouldn't be framed as an 'either/or' proposition. Now is the time to brush away uncertainty and put Artemis on a track forward. As critics have pointed out, it is unclear whether NASA has a tangible plan for getting to the moon and back. The lunar landing system is still in the concept stage. 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Los Angeles Times
14 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. city leaders are in high-stakes negotiations on Olympics costs
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Los Angeles Times
19 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
9th Circuit keeps freeze on Southern California ICE patrols
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