“I’ve jokingly said it came and went so fast, it seemed more like 13 minutes!” Martindale wrote, explaining that it was the worst show of his career.
Dustin Holmes, second from right, holds hands with his girlfriend, Hailey Morgan, while returning to their flooded home with her children Aria Skye Hall, 7, right, and Kyle Ross, 4, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)Dustin Holmes, second from right, holds hands with his girlfriend, Hailey Morgan, while returning to their flooded home with her children Aria Skye Hall, 7, right, and Kyle Ross, 4, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)
Richardson promised to push more responsibilities. He warned that the agency will only do what the law requires and shift more costs to states.But Koon noted that states haven’t budgeted for FEMA’s changes, adding: “The biggest issue right now is just the uncertainty.”
Some states — which coordinate disaster operations — are experienced in catastrophes, have well trained staff and will do fine, such as Texas and Florida, Fugate said. But it’s the poorer states that worry the experts.The feds often pick up the entire bill in big disasters and most of it in smaller ones. In the Trump administration, disaster declarations have been denied or delayed. When disaster declarations were issued
last week, some had been pending for two months and others were only partially approved.
“We’ve just relied on FEMA for so much for so long and not knowing who’s going to fill the gap and how we’re going to fill it is really scary,” said University at Albany emergency management professor Jeannette Sutton.“It’s just a golf course where you may not hit it in the right spot and it’ll go down 40 feet and instead of being almost tap-in range, now you have a 40-foot chip where it’s running off the back, as well,” Korda said. “You just know that your mentality is that you’re going to make mistakes, but you can also bounce back here.”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Americans are losing a vast array of people and programs dedicated to keeping them healthy. Gone are specialists who werein Ohio, workers who drove a van to schools in North Carolina to offer vaccinations and a program that provided free tests to sick people in Tennessee.
State and local health departments responsible for invisible but critical work such as inspecting restaurants, monitoring wastewater for new and harmful germs, responding to outbreaks before they get too big — and a host of other tasks to protect both individuals and communities — are being hollowed out.“Nobody wants to go swim in a community pool and come out of it with a rash or a disease from it. Nobody wants to walk out their door and take a fresh breath of air and start wheezing,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.