When climate disasters strike, funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is just one part of the response. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) also plays a significant role by helping cities and states rebuild after hurricanes, wildfires, and other climate impacts. The Trump administration, which has already taken aim at FEMA, now plans to drastically reduce the HUD office that funds disaster recovery.
Its a move that threatens the entire countryand some Republican-led districts more so. Every single state has had at least one federally declared major disaster due to extreme weather since 2011, according to Rebuild by Design, a project at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University that focuses in part on climate resilience.
That means all Senate districts have been affected by fires, floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes (though extreme heat can be deadly and continues to be a growing climate threat, heat waves have not yet initiated a federal disaster declaration). Meanwhile, 99.5% of congressional districts in the U.S. include a county that has had at least one such disaster, with only two unscathedthough that figure doesnt include statewide disaster declarations, the organization notes, which if counted would have raised the number to 100%. Still, that 99.5% figure has amounted to at least $117.9 billion in federal post-disaster assistance from FEMA and HUD.
[Screenshot: Atlas of Accountability]
Since 2011, 22 congressional districts have been struck by 12 or more disasters, and 77.3% of those are represented by Republican House members, while 22.7% are represented by Democrats. When it comes to the most affected states, California tops the list with 39, but Oklahoma, Tennessee, Iowa, Vermont, Alaska, and Mississippi all have had more than 25 disaster declarations each. Still, nearly every American has been affected in some way: 99.5% of U.S. residents live in counties with recent disaster declarations, per Rebuild by Designs analysis.
Rebuild by Design began as a HUD-launched design competition in 2013 to respond to the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy. It has since become a broader organization to help governments collaborate on climate preparedness. It has also created an Atlas of Accountability, an interactive map that catalogs county-level disaster declarations, overlaying that information with details on congressional districts. The tool is meant to help communities and policymakers understand their exposure to disasters and the benefits of investing in climate resilience.
This week, Rebuild by Design updated the tool with its latest data, highlighting how disasters have impacted the country. This update continues to show that disasters impact everyone, said Jeff Stevens, EVP and general manager at iParametrics, an emergency management organization, in a statement. We need to invest in resilience before and after disasters to reduce the disaster impacts on communities and their critical infrastructure.
