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The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s elimination this month of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program revoked upward of $3.6 billion in funding earmarked for communities regularly threatened by disasters.
Though President Donald Trump has openly questioned whether to shutter FEMA completely, municipal officials say they were blindsided by the move to end BRIC, established during the Republican president’s first term.
Many affected communities are in Republican-dominated, disaster-prone regions. FEMA called the BRIC grants “wasteful” and “politicized” tools, but officials and residents say they were a vital use of government resources to proactively protect lives, infrastructure and economies. Money would have gone toward strengthening electrical poles to withstand hurricane-force winds in Louisiana, relocating residents in Pennsylvania’s floodplains and safeguarding water supply lines in Oklahoma’s Tornado Alley.
Disasters affect the vast majority of Americans—95% live in a county that has had a federally declared weather disaster since 2011, said Amy Chester, director of Rebuild by Design, a nonprofit focused on disaster prevention.
Across multiple states, officials say the BRIC program was far from perfect—they were often frustrated with the wait for funding.
But in southeast Louisiana, Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson says that despite his issues with FEMA’s bureaucracy, he’s seen firsthand that money invested to fortify homes and infrastructure works.
The hurricane-ravaged state receives the highest rate of federal disaster assistance per capita, with more than $8 billion pouring in since 2011, according to Rebuild by Design. Lafourche Parish has seen more than a dozen federally declared extreme weather disasters since 2011.
Lafourche had been set to receive more than $20 million from several grants to replace wooden electrical poles with steel and take other steps to lower the soaring costs of home insurance.
Chaisson, a Republican whose parish saw 80% of voters support Trump in November, says he backs efforts to streamline federal agencies—as long as funding continues to flow for disaster prevention.
“I’m hopeful that that’s what the president’s trying to do with this,” he says. “Is there some other way to get the money so we can continue to do these projects? … No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, the programs themselves and the dollars allocated make our communities more resilient.”
Research backs him up: A 2024 study funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found every $1 invested in disaster preparation saved $13 in economic impact, damage and cleanup costs.
