The Growing Role of Federal Government in Disaster Relief

In an article for Governing, Donald F. Kettl argues that the federal government shouldn’t abandon disaster mitigation and relief to local governments and private insurers, as some have suggested.

“Virtually every part of the country is seeing more and larger emergency events, on a truly historic scale,” Kettl writes, with two major implications: first, local governments and even state governments don’t have the capacity and resources to respond to disasters as quickly as FEMA.

“Second, more mandates have followed federal aid. The feds are now requiring everyone who has had property damaged in a flood disaster within a high-risk flood area to buy insurance, either from a private company or from the federal National Flood Insurance Program.” FEMA also started a voluntary “severe repetitive loss” program that allows state and local governments to buy out properties that suffer repeated damage.

For Kettl, the federal government’s growing role in disaster management is inevitable.