Dan Craig, Senior Vice President at Tidal Basin interviewed Arizona’s Director of Emergency Management, Wendy Smith-Reeve for our newest Disaster Recovery Today publication piece titled, “State-Managed Disasters: An Interview with Arizona’s Director of Emergency Management.”

Dan and Wendy discuss the “current push to have states take a more active role in managing disaster response and recovery efforts.”

“Since the founding of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on April 1, 1979, the federal government has viewed its role in disaster response and recovery efforts as supplemental. In other words, FEMA would not function as the first-line provider of emergency assistance and disaster response and recovery. Instead, it will support state and local governments – not supplant them…”

Currently, North Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Arizona are the only five states in the U.S. that are actively participating in the state-managed disaster initiative.

What are the key benefits and downfalls to states who participate, FEMA, and sub-grantees? What is FEMA’s role when a state is managing a disaster on its own? Find out this and more by reading our latest edition!

To read this issue of Disaster Recovery Today, click here.

To view all editions of this publication, visit: https://www.tidalbasingroup.com/publications/disaster-recovery-today

Disaster Recovery Today is offered free of charge as a public service by our team of experts. Within its pages is the knowledge gained from years of study and field experience that has made our Disaster Recovery Consulting division recognized specialists in FEMA’s Public Assistance program. We have assisted grantees and applicants with virtually all stages of recovery from planning to close-out, and are pleased to be able to share this expertise.
Disaster Recovery Today is written from a position of advocacy for the applicant. Our team works exclusively on behalf of grantees and applicants, never for FEMA itself. This unique perspective allows us to “tell it like it is” without reservation, and provides you with valuable insights from a non-FEMA perspective.