As Kentucky Floods, Disasters Refuse to Wait for FEMA ‘Turmoil’ to Resolve

“This is one of the most serious weather events that we’ve dealt with in at least a decade,” Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on Monday. The death toll is expected to rise as the waters eventually recede. National Guard troops have been activated from three states, and they have conducted at least 1,000 rescues already. Wastewater systems are out of commission and thousands of homes lack access to clean water, while hundreds of roads remain closed on Monday. “There are still people in harm’s way,” Beshear said.

Along with the National Guard, FEMA has also deployed the Kentucky, and its funds are now available to people affected. Trump approved an emergency declaration for all the state’s counties — presumably reluctantly, given his idea, first spouted while touring an active disaster site in California, that FEMA should disappear entirely and disaster response should be left up to the states. Newly confirmed Homeland Security head Kristi Noem, meanwhile, has issued confusing and problematic directives for FEMA, and several employees including at least one top official there were fired last week for “circumventing leadership.” CNN’s reporting on the firings described an agency in “turmoil.”

Kentucky’s flooding, which is hitting many of the same places that were devastated by a flood in the summer of 2022, isn’t over yet. “Stream and river levels will continue to rise over the next few days in some areas, and this could cause new flooding to develop,” according to the National Weather Service (another Trump and Musk target, of course) on Monday. FEMA is there, for the moment, and will be at the next disaster, until the ignorant chaos agents in charge manage to break it, like they are trying to break everything, beyond repair.