WASHINGTON -- The new administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brock Long, will face his first challenge in the position after Hurricane Harvey makes landfall on the Texas coast.
Long said he knew it was just a matter of time.
"We've gone 11 years without a major hurricane land-falling in the U.S. That's a 1-in-2,000 chance," Long said Monday in an interview at his office.
He added later, "I worry that a lot of people have forgotten what that's like."
[HURRICANE TRACKER: Follow Harvey’s projected path]
The country is about to be reminded. As of Friday afternoon, Hurricane Harvey was expected to hit the Texas coast as a Category 4 storm, with wind speeds of 130 miles per hour and flooding as high as 7 feet.
Long was sworn in two months ago. His appointment was welcomed by experts on extreme weather, who praised him as neither overtly ideological nor hostile to the mission of the agency he was chosen by President Donald Trump to lead. Before being appointed to the job, he was director of Alabama's Emergency Management Agency from 2008 to 2011, as well as a regional hurricane program manager for FEMA.
"He is a rare Trump appointee who is a well-known professional in the field in which he was appointed," said Eli Lehrer, president of the R Street Institute, a Washington research group that promotes market-based solutions to climate change. "Every part of his reputation suggests he'll take a careful, deliberate, technocratic approach to the job."
If Hurricane Harvey is as severe as predicted, the toll will certainly test Long and his agency. It could also pose a political risk to the Trump administration, whose first budget proposal sought to cut FEMA's funding by 11 percent.
President George W. Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which killed almost 2,000 people and from which New Orleans is still recovering, pushed his approval ratings to the lowest level in his presidency.
"Can I quit now?" Bush's FEMA director, Michael Brown, wrote in an email to his spokesman on the morning Katrina struck. Three weeks later, he did.
Demonstrating preparedness during Hurricane Harvey isn't Long's only challenge. The storm could also get in the way of his goal of reducing the federal government's financial exposure to extreme weather.
In the interview Monday, Long told Bloomberg News that he wants Congress to limit federal flood insurance for homes that flood time and time again. He also expressed support for a proposal -- first devised at the end of President Barack Obama's administration -- to push more of the costs of disaster recovery onto state and local governments.
That shift could encourage local officials to adopt tougher building codes, restrict construction in vulnerable coastal zones and generally do more to protect residents from natural disasters.
"I believe in guarding the taxpayer dollar as much as I can," Long said. "I don't think the taxpayer should reward risk going forward."
Long's agenda for FEMA already faced tough odds in Congress. Legislators cut subsidies to the National Flood Insurance Program in 2012, only to retreat in the face of public outcry. The program must be reauthorized by the end of next month. If severe and expensive flooding occurs in Texas, it could halt momentum for serious changes.
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A Section on 08/26/2017