Uncertainty of future FEMA disaster funding alarms Bay Area emergency planners

MARTINEZ Across the Bay Area county leaders responsible for emergency planning are bracing for the economic aftershocks should President Donald Trump make good on promises to eliminate the Federal Urgency Management Agency and scrap federal funding that has long helped residents recover from floods earthquakes and other calamities FEMA already has stopped boots-on-the-ground response operations slashed the list of reimbursable populace projects and throttled accident reimbursements for repairs following natural disasters extreme weather or other emergencies just a handful of the changes flagged by Rick Kovar Contra Costa County s urgency services manager In a push to wean states off FEMA the Trump administration has also reduced federal cost-sharing paused applications for urgency management grants and ignored prior approvals for dozens of hazard-mitigation projects including four in California worth more than million for flood prevention It s key to make sure that everyone understands that these are scary times for us in crisis management Kovar announced during a multi-agency strategy board meeting last month Until FEMA s fate is better known he noted we re definitely reading the tea leaves There s a lot at stake for the region On a FEMA color-coded hazard map Alameda Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties are shaded dark red indicating an area with nearly million Californians that face the majority of dire risks of extreme weather Of the California counties most of at pitfall Alameda ranked th Santa Clara ranked th and Contra Costa ranked th For nearly half a century FEMA has stepped in when the lights have gone out such as when atmospheric rivers pummeled California in winter or during the recurrent flooding that threatens single-family homes and creekside encampments across the South Bay Contra Costa County Office of Urgency Services Manager Rick Kovar during a meeting of the Emergency Services Strategy Board at the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department in Martinez Calif on Tuesday Oct Jane Tyska Bay Area News Group Under a federal agenda change proposed in April for example of the disasters declared across the nation between and would not have qualified for FEMA funding that totaled billion Kovar disclosed California would not have secured of the billion it received under that scenario nearly billion lost according to a May review from the Urban Institute Only New York would have fared worse County emergency planners have taken notice Contra Costa for one lacks the threshold to fill the federal funding gaps if FEMA follows through on proposed rollbacks Kovar announced We re going to have to really start strategically planning on how we re going to make that up if we want to stay in the calamity recovery competition revealed Kovar noted whose association logged hours of unpaid overtime following the bomb cyclone in January of We don t want to be in a wait and see period with wildfire season coming up Related Articles survivors uncovered after ferry sinks off Bali Indonesia Lake Tahoe boating tragedy Two survivors wore life jackets Casualties identified in Lake Tahoe boating tragedy include DoorDash exec Josh Pickles Lake Tahoe boating tragedy Big waves cold water strong winds created deadly conditions Following days-long search bodies of three Northern California drowning casualties revealed Inadequate staffing was one of the bulk glaring concerns identified in a June civil grand jury record regarding the county s population warning system which is designed maintained and operated by the Sheriff s Office In November the Board of Supervisors authorized of Measure X funding to research its current function and explore tactics the county can improve its management of emergencies Leaders in Santa Clara County by comparison are more confident they are equipped with a robust plan when not if the next mishap strikes The work of saving lives is not going to be affected if FEMA does or does not reimburse us mentioned Charles Harris spokesperson for the county s Office of Crisis Management citing years of commitment that established accessible area alerts periodic reviews of hazard-specific plans and other mitigation policies But Santa Clara County Executive James Williams acknowledged this week that even the strongest the majority agile crisis management systems are still in jeopardy if FEMA is dismantled In during the COVID pandemic healthcare staff work at a new COVID- test site at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose Santa Clara County opened a large-scale coronavirus testing site to test thousands of residents daily Dai Sugano Bay Area News Group Consider the pandemic The enhanced large-scale dilemma response that organized testing sites vaccination clinics and other inhabitants programs within weeks of the Bay Area s March population vitality urgency declaration were fueled by assurance that FEMA would step up when local governments exceeded their means Williams mentioned The federal authorities is the only entity that has the ability on a short term basis to tap into essentially an unlimited fiscal fund Williams revealed But we also should not be fooled into thinking that there is an actual substitute for an effective robust and committed federal establishment Without the agency guiding local leaders during emergencies acting as the infrastructural backbone connecting a nationwide grid of specialized materials such as weather forecasts and mutual aid requests crisis leaders in California will need to come to each other s aid The architecture behind exigency response is managed by FEMA its training materials organization and coordination and that will degrade Williams stated The notion that the federal administration in this day s day and age is going to step back and not have a dedicated agency to urgency management and response is really scary and really disturbing Flood waters cover the majority of P jaro Valley on Sunday March after an atmospheric river storm caused the a break in the levee along the P jaro river inundating homes and businesses and leaving thousands of people without shelter Shae Hammond Bay Area News Group Residents of Pajaro a small farming town in Monterey County have already been swept up into FEMA-related funding clawbacks two years after the neighborhood was catastrophically flooded after a -year-old levee crumbled following torrential rainfall which forced thousands to evacuate and damaged over homes U S Rep Zoe Lofgren is one of a dozen California representatives to Congress who criticized Trump s budget request for the next fiscal year which excluded the Pajaro River Project from the Army Corp of Engineer s work plan for If funding isn t restored she and other lawmakers fear the project will be abandoned half-finished Lofgren noted in June that ensuring its completion is vital for the area s safety and livelihood After torrential rainfall in early triggered the worst flooding landslides and mudslides stated in Contra Costa County in contemporary memory Tim Ewell chief assistant county administrator noted a club of federal inspectors were dispatched to help residents and establishment authorities assess the damage setting up a FEMA trailer in the parking lot outside the former Danville city hall and going door-to-door All of that under the current administration is ceasing for individual assistance insists Ewell informed the county board in late June While the money set aside to reimburse local governments taxpayer-funded accident work has not been cut from the federal budget right now they re not funding it What that means is we need to become more resilient as a county and as a state Ewell reported