Rural towns left as 'sitting ducks' following cuts to FEMA emergency disaster relief

As Federal Emergency Management Agency grant funds remain in limbo, rural communities have been left in the lurch, NPR reported.

What's happening?

NPR highlighted the plight of Duryea, Pennsylvania, a borough with roughly 5,000 residents.

Duryea is bordered by the Susquehanna River, and the Lackawanna River flows through the small community, with its "low, placid waters" visible from homes, schools, and offices.

In September 2011, Duryea was impacted by record-breaking floods, with the region sustaining hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Experts suspected that the existing levee system significantly exacerbated flooding in the area.

In May 2024, WNEP reported that long-awaited efforts to update the area's levee system in response to heavier rains and worsening floods were finally underway in Luzerne County, much to the relief of Duryea residents.

Less than a year later, vital FEMA funding earmarked to bolster the county's levees was abruptly rescinded amid broader federal cuts, specifically to FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program.

According to NPR, BRIC was terminated as part of a larger purported effort to root out "waste, fraud, and abuse" at key federal agencies — after Luzerne County had already sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into the now-stalled project.

Urban Institute disaster policy expert Andrew Rumbach told NPR that Duryea was one of hundreds of small American towns waiting to receive funds "already appropriated" by Congress.

"We're a country full of sitting ducks, unfortunately," he said. 

"They're vulnerable to hazards like floods and wildfires, and the climate is changing and making these events more common and more costly."

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Why is this concerning?

As NPR noted, communities have "no way to access federal grants" that Congress previously earmarked specifically for projects like Luzerne County's levees, and FEMA refused to answer questions about when the appropriated funds would be disbursed.

Rumbach cited the increasing frequency and scale of extreme weather events, an extensively documented global phenomenon, that federal officials have attempted to deny and downplay in recent months.

Rep. Rob Bresnahan represents Luzerne, and he told NPR that the county could never fund the levee project without federal help.

"They don't have the resources. They just don't have $10 million laying around," Bresnahan said.

Small, rural communities like Duryea are hamstrung in part by their size and resources; larger, more densely populated areas with dedicated staff to secure grants often get funds first.

"It's very difficult because communities have volunteer fire departments, volunteer emergency management people. A lot of these communities, they have some little old lady that basically is the entire office staff," former flood management official James Brozena told NPR. 

What's being done about it?

In July, a coalition of 20 states sued the federal government over what the plaintiffs alleged was an unlawful termination of FEMA's BRIC program.

On Dec. 11, a federal district court judge ruled in favor of the states, finding the impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds to be unlawful and ordering FEMA to restore more than $3.6 billion in frozen funds allocated for disaster mitigation.

However, NPR reported that it was "unclear when money will start flowing again."

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