TACO buckles again says he won't phase out FEMA until after hurricane season.

[Tonk]

Last edited Wed Jun 11, 2025, 07:12 AM - Edit history (1)

Let's cut to the chase, communities across the Gulf of Mexico and the entirety of the eastern seaboard are at risk of devastation and death this hurricane season. States and local governments are preparing for a potentially busy and hazardous windstorm season. It is not the only threat to the country; fires, deadly heat, flooding, and recently, tornadoes are predicted to result in record-breaking damage across the continental US, the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Trump has already made cuts to the NWS and NOAA, where workers have claimed the agencies' mission to research and provide data for local experts to analyze and alert the public. Has ground to a halt due to forced departures and funding cuts. The chaos of climate change-enhanced natural disasters is not limited to the eastern half of the country.

As the LA | LA Times reports, California is also at risk of losing critical life-saving data from NOAA.

WASHINGTON — When a fire erupts in California, it is a lab across the country, at the University of Maryland, that works together with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to determine where the smoke is going. Those unsung scientists help warn the people downwind of dangerous air quality levels.

About a half-hour drive away, NOAA’s Satellite Operations Facility provides the bulk of the work used to forecast atmospheric rivers that are crucial — and sometimes threatening — to communities across the state.

And it is the National Weather Service, working with buoys at sea and satellites in orbit, figuring out the risks of increased winds and dryness that could prompt devastating fires in highly populated areas such as Los Angeles.

snip

The Trump administration proposes to go further, seeking to eliminate the entire research team that provides forecasters with tools to make their assessments. The Satellite Operations Facility has been hit with deep layoffs. Contracts for the buoys, and other equipment, are on hold while under review by the Commerce Department.

What comes after for citizens is a long-term recovery resulting in PTSD, no power, no fresh food, and in some cases, no potable water. FEMA was created to coordinate the response in these ravaged regions. An interesting fact about the agency's creation goes back quite a way.

Congressional Act of 1803
The first legislative act of federal disaster relief in U.S. history followed a devastating fire in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in December 1802. The destruction of large areas of the city’s seaport threatened commerce in the newly founded nation. In 1803, U.S. Congress provided relief to affected Portsmouth merchants by suspending bond payments for several months.

Creation of FEMA
President Carter signed Executive Order 12127, effective April 1, 1979, establishing FEMA. Shortly after, in signing Executive Order 12148 on July 20, 1979, President Carter gave the agency the dual mission of emergency management and civil defense.

But Trump hates FEMA, and he's already damaged the agency's ability to respond to a catastrophe. From The New York Times reports on the looming tropical storm season.

Atlantic Hurricane season officially began this week and it comes at an uneasy time for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Last month, the head of FEMA was dismissed, and several senior officials have left. This has come after threats from the Trump administration to dismantle the agency and cuts across multiple federal agencies that are key to storm prediction and response. FEMA has lost about a quarter of its full-time staff in recent months.

As several of my colleagues reported, all of that has left cities and states uncertain about how much federal support they’ll have when a disaster or storm strikes.

Yesterday, after being harangued by Red State Senators and Governors over tornadoes that severely damaged their communities, Trump refused their pleas for help. But someone convinced Trump to appear like he cared for the next few months only. Unless disaster strikes a blue state. they don't matter to him or Republican leaders.

CNN:

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he plans to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency after this year’s hurricane season, offering the clearest timeline yet for his administration’s long-term plans to dismantle the disaster relief agency and shift responsibility for response and recovery onto states.

We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump told reporters during a briefing in the Oval Office, later saying, “A governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor.”

Trump added that the federal government will start distributing less federal aid for disaster recovery and that the funding will come directly from the president’s office. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects this year’s hurricane season, which officially ends on November 30, to be particularly intense and potentially deadly.

He's a monster.

[Tonk]

1. Why

Why do so many not recommend stories such as this? If anyone thinks they will not be affected by climate impacts this summer, they are likely to be wrong.

[taxi]

2. I'll rec your OP because you are correct.

Let me also say that members here are more inclined to agree than just about anywhere else you could have posted. Some of us have been true to this cause for our entire lives and remember when Nixon authorized the EPA. That was a long time ago. Eventually learning to just shut up about things that got us nowhere.

[Tonk]

3. You are right of course. I've been active since the 60's.

There are way too many shiny objects that distract us. As you say, spinning your wheels over and over again is discouraging. Thanks for your service, taxi. It's a lonely place to be, just wanted you to know..

[littlemissmartypants]

7. Good grief, Tonk. Give folks a chance to wake up and have their coffee.

For some it may take a bit of caffeine to get that outrage fomenting.





Welcome to DU.



❤️

[Lovie777]

4. Unfortunately the dismantling of FEMA with unqualified non caring people..................

will be a disaster.

Tornado regions are still waiting on some type of assistance from this fucked up administration.

[Tonk]

5. They have zero empathy.

They have not experienced anything that climate victims know.

[dem4decades]

6. Does Taco know hurricane season is an annual event? Or will he cancel next year with his Sharpee.

[littlemissmartypants]

8. He's a ...

Fucking idiot and a psychopath. He knows nothing about anything but destruction and causing pain.

His latent self hatred will eventually do him in, but unfortunately, there will be a lot of collateral damage in the meantime.

Nothing gives him, in fact, all psycho/sociopaths more pleasure than death and destruction.

With deep first-hand knowledge of how these aberrant freaks operate, nothing he does or says surprises me.

Every day is opposite day with them. Remember that for them to love is to hurt. They are twisted sick aberrations, and unfortunately, they are a segment of the human population that has been and will always be with us.

The sooner we learn to identify them, their dangerous ways, and develop adequate strategies for the annihilation of them and the risks they bring to society, the better.

He literally needs to be squashed like a bug.

I spit in his general direction.

Keep the faith, Tonk.

And again, welcome to DU.

❤️pants

[get the red out]

9. Someone probably reminded him

that Mar a Lago could get hit.

[Delmette2.0]

12. Oh gees, not until he is out of office.

If it hits while he is in office FEMA will pay for all the repairs and then some improvements.
He needs to tough it out like any other citizen.

[hatrack]

10. Does he think it's one and done? More to the point, who CARES what he says?

He just shits out of his word-hole and forgets whatever he says within five minutes.

[Dem4life1970]

11. He has no idea what he is doing.

[kacekwl]

13. Did he also

re hire those who were fired and supply funding musk Doged away ?

[Tonk]

14. Not that I'm aware of.

He told red states that maybe a little funding may be coming. NOAA will be shut down, and they have eliminated NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

[Tonk]

15. Not that I'm aware of but if he did the damage has already been done.

He told red states that maybe a little funding may be coming. NOAA will be shut down, and they have eliminated NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.