Ten days before Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Texas coast, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to speed up the pipeline for federal infrastructure projects. One component of that Aug. 15 order? Eliminating an Obama-era rule called the federal flood risk management standard that asked agencies to account for climate change projections when they approved projects. That drew condemnation from an odd coalition of scientists, civil engineers, and fiscal conservatives concerned about reversion to the old ways: pouring money into projects that would soon be washed away.
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The "I" of the Storm: Trump's Egotistical Failure in the Face of Harvey
Remember that until October, we’re still living on Obama money. He owns this hurricane and the resources available to it. The upcoming Trump budget, then, will give us a good idea of how the new president plans to make his “investment in our future,” because that’s literally what it is. Mr. Trump’s 2018 budget blueprint, literally titled “America First: A budget blueprint to make America great again,” thrashes disaster relief funding. He proposed cutting FEMA state and local funds by $667 million. That of course includes response and relief to weather-related disasters, but it also cuts state and local counterterrorism funds. In New York Fucking City, for instance, where the threat of terrorist attack is fairly high, I’d wager.
Puerto Rico increases Hurricane Maria death toll to 2,975
The revised death toll is nearly 50 times the previous estimate of 64 Governor Ricardo Rossello "accepted" the findings in a long-awaited independent investigation. Puerto
Rico has struggled to repair its infrastructure and power grid since
the storm, and is asking US Congress for $139bn (£108bn) in recovery
funds.
A year after Hurricane Harvey, some cleanup workers are still unpaid
One year on from Hurricane Harvey – and as the true scale of the mess left by Hurricane Florence
emerges in the Carolinas – the cleanup work in Houston still continues.
And workers still digging out from the mess are fearful that they may
not get paid.
Despite new law, Trump administration has not given Puerto Rico emergency food stamp aid
The Trump administration has not yet given Puerto Rico $600 million in
food stamp aid more than two weeks after the president signed the
emergency funding into law, according to federal and territory officials