People take a break at a cooling station at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon, during the 2021 record-breaking heat wave. (Photo by Catherine Elsesser/AFP Getty Images)
Catherine Elsesser/AFP/Getty Images/AFP
hide title
Switch title
Catherine Elsesser/AFP/Getty Images/AFP
The massive heat dome that hit the Pacific Northwest in 2021 paralyzed the region. Emergency rooms are overwhelmed. The road curved in the heat. Hundreds died.
That same year, Hurricane Ida struck the Southeast. Buildings were razed to the ground in Louisiana. Hundreds of thousands lost power. At least 87 people have died in the United States.
Both are deadly and painful. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency provided billions of dollars and months of post-disaster support to states and families hit by IDA. Heat dome victims, on the other hand, receive no support from the federal government.
The difference stems from a longstanding practice: FEMA responds to natural disasters, such as hurricanes or earthquakes, that cause significant and visible damage to physical infrastructure. But the agency has historically failed to respond to extreme heat. Now, a coalition of environmental nonprofits, unions, health professionals and environmental justice groups is asking the agency to change that. In a petition filed Monday, the coalition asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to add extreme heat and wildfire smoke to the list of disasters they respond to.
“Hurricanees are terrible. Earthquakes are terrible. But heat is actually the number one killer of all weather-related climate emergencies right now.
Su said climate change is exacerbating the risks of heat and wildfire smoke, making once-manageable seasonal problems increasingly dangerous and deadly. At least 2,200 people died from heat-related deaths last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but experts say that number is almost certainly a vast underestimate.
“If we really look at where FEMA can make the most difference, it would be to target and focus major disaster funding on the actual health impacts and lives of extreme heat and wildfire smoke,” Su said.
FEMA’s guiding law, the Stafford Act, lists 16 natural disasters that fall under the agency’s disaster relief authority. But Samantha Montano, an emergency management expert at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, said the bill’s language is designed to be flexible and cover disasters that are not specifically listed. For example, after some preliminary debate, FEMA was authorized to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, even though “pandemic” was not included in the disaster category.
“Everyone in emergency management said, well, this must be covered,” Montano said.
Heat is another disaster
But historically, the agency has not responded to extreme heat. Part of the problem lies in procedural practices, said Juantia Constibull, an environmental policy expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council. A governor or tribal leader must first request a disaster declaration from the U.S. president before FEMA can step in. Few governors have requested heat emergencies. More recently, Illinois asked after a deadly 1995 heat wave tested Chicago’s emergency response systems. California asks for help in dealing with wildfires caused by high temperatures in 2022.
So far, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied those requests because states have not proven that their local resources are completely overwhelmed — the threshold the agency uses to decide whether to intervene. But that doesn’t prevent FEMA from making different decisions in the future if the governor requests it, Montano said.
“It may not specifically say heat waves [the Stafford Act]But this is certainly what we understand as a disaster,” she said. “A lot of bad things can happen in communities. If there’s a way we can use FEMA to help these communities, then I think we should do that.
FEMA spokesman Daniel Llargues said that in theory, FEMA could respond to heat emergencies without changing the language in the Stafford Act. “There is nothing specific in the Stafford Act that prohibits declarations of extreme heat,” he wrote in an email. “If an extreme heat event does occur that exceeds state and local capacity, a request for an emergency or major disaster declaration may be considered.”
Definition of heat disaster
Still, the threshold for a heat wave to become a designated disaster could be high. Former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator Craig Fugate said hot weather alone isn’t enough. He said the event would have to move into the realm of the truly catastrophic and unexpected — a reality that is happening more frequently because of climate change. But his city of Gainesville, Florida, has had days with heat indexes reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which doesn’t have to be a disaster. In a place like Wisconsin, the same high temperatures could have a much greater impact, even catastrophic, because the people and infrastructure there are not adapted to such conditions.
“Is this event so extreme that the community and the people who live there will suffer significant losses, or will it require resources that neither local government nor the state has?” Fugate asked.
However, estimating these losses is an ongoing challenge. Countries have historically added up factors such as damage to physical infrastructure and the cost of medical facilities and other emergency systems to demonstrate that a disaster exceeds their capacity to handle. But in a heat disaster, the effects are less obvious and more health-focused, Constable said.
“After a hurricane, after a big storm, there’s tremendous damage. Power lines are down, buildings are destroyed, whole businesses are blown up,” she said. But in hot weather, “most injured people are largely invisible to policymakers. They die alone in their homes. They are homeless and dying in the streets. Often, those heat-related deaths are not counted. Either it was grossly underestimated, or it was counted so slowly that the true cost of the disaster was not known until months later.
What FEMA can do during a heat disaster
A presidential disaster declaration frees up FEMA support during a disaster and provides funding to help communities respond during and during the long recovery period after a disaster.
Fugate said the agency can help with extreme heat emergencies if a state’s governor believes they need more help than the state’s own resources can handle. FEMA can provide cooling facilities, water stations and generators to air-condition resting spaces, or it can provide additional medical assistance if hospitals are overwhelmed.
FEMA also provides resources directly to people, such as funeral assistance for loved ones killed in disasters or medical assistance to cover the costs of seeking emergency care. Adelita Cantu, a public health nurse at the University of Texas Health at San Antonio and a member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, a co-signer of the petition, is dedicated to working with socially disadvantaged and low-income communities .
She said her patients “won’t turn on the air conditioning because they’re worried about the electricity bill.” “This needs to be one of the safety issues that we all need to think about right now.” She said FEMA funding to help pay power bills during extreme heat disasters can save lives.
The agency also funds recovery and recovery efforts to help prevent similar disasters from happening again. This could include projects such as building long-term recovery centers with backup power to help keep people cool if the power goes out in an area. FEMA could also address urban heat island impacts or equip the homes of particularly vulnerable community members with cooling equipment. But Fugate stressed that FEMA is not the only government agency with the ability or responsibility to fund long-term disaster resiliency efforts.
“Yes, it’s getting worse. Yes, it’s climate-related,” Fugate said. But the question is, “This is [heat event] Is there something unusual that warrants an emergency declaration? Or are there other federal programs that could address these issues? He emphasized that solving chronic Heat risks are the responsibility of state and local governments.
Petitioners are asking FEMA to include extreme heat and wildfire smoke within its jurisdiction, saying the risks tend to range from chronic to acute. “The problem at 20,000 feet right now is that our Federal Emergency Management Agency is not equipped to actually deal with the existential emergency of our time, which is climate,” Su said. “We are no longer in a state of property damage from earthquakes and flooding. But we are now at a new level where emergencies can look like real deaths.
