While Trump overhauls FEMA, Mississippi tornado survivors await assistance

By SOPHIE BATES Associated Press TYLERTOWN Miss AP More than two months after a tornado destroyed his home Brian Lowery still looks through the rubble hoping to find a tie clip his mother gave him made from the center stone of her wedding band I still have hope Lowery announced Lowery considers himself lucky He his wife and -year-old son made it to safety before the tornado ripped apart their trailer home of years Despite his positive outlook Lowery admits he s frustrated Mississippi s request for federal aid is still pending before the Federal Exigency Management Agency meaning badly needed assistance has not yet made it to his hard-hit locality of Tylertown I don t know what you got to do or what you got to have to be able to be declared for a federal calamity area because this is pretty bad Lowery declared We can t help you because whatever we re waiting on a letter we re waiting on somebody to sign his name You know all that I m just over it Debris still covers the ground at the Paradise Ranch RV Resort in Tylertown Miss on Thursday May two months after a tornado decimated the public AP Photo Sophie Bates Republican Mississippi Gov Tate Reeves urged the Trump administration for a major accident declaration on April after tornadoes tore through the state on March and leaving seven people dead and hundreds of homes destroyed or damaged The declaration would allow the state to access a wide range of FEMA guidance including financial aid for individuals and for governing body agencies still removing debris and repairing infrastructure We don t have a declaration yet People are still hurting mentioned Royce McKee crisis management director for Walthall County which includes Tylertown Mississippi s request comes at a time of upheaval for FEMA The agency s acting administrator Cameron Hamilton was in recent times ousted after he publicly disagreed with proposals to dismantle FEMA an idea President Donald Trump has floated in calling the agency very bureaucratic and very slow David Richardson FEMA s new acting administrator committed himself to executing Trump s vision for the agency He also previewed likely program changes saying there could be more cost-sharing with states and that FEMA would coordinate federal assistance when deemed necessary Walthall County was hit especially hard by the massive storm system that wreaked havoc across multiple states The storm spawned two crucial tornadoes in the county where four people died McKee revealed the county has sunk an estimated into cleaning up the damage but can t afford to spend more and has halted operations until it receives federal help We need federal help and we need it desperately and we need it now declared Bobby McGinnis a Tylertown resident and firefighter I know President Trump revealed that America first we re going to help our American folks first But we haven t seen the federal folks down here While Mississippi has been waiting a similar major calamity declaration request out of Arkansas after the storms hit was denied appealed by Republican Gov Sarah Huckabee Sanders and completely approved on May Related Articles Thomas Friedman My first thought when I heard Joe Biden s news US sends asylum seekers back to Honduras and Colombia in first voluntary deportation Nebraska to ban soda and strength drinks from SNAP under first USDA waiver Trump administration to pay nearly M to settle suit over Ashli Babbitt s fatal shooting in Capitol Trump hosts the Kennedy Center board as he seeks to remake arts and heritage in America We are encouraged by FEMA s decision regarding Arkansas application from the same storm system that hit Mississippi Scott Simmons the Mississippi Exigency Management Agency s director of external affairs stated in a message We anxiously await a positive decision Mississippi lawmakers have been pressing federal bureaucrats on the issue During a congressional hearing in early May Republican Mississippi Rep Michael Guest petitioned U S Homeland Safeguard Secretary Kristi Noem whose department oversees FEMA to push forward the request I would ask you if you could make sure that you could do everything to expedite that request Guest commented It is impacting my local jurisdictions with debris cleanup It is impacting people as they seek to recover Republican Mississippi U S Sen Cindy Hyde-Smith also solicited Noem about FEMA assistance and the administration s new approach to the agency President Trump has been very clear that he believes that the way that FEMA exists in the modern day should not continue Noem responded He wants to make sure that those reforms are happening where states are empowered to do the response and trained and equipped and then the federal regime would come in and advocacy them and financially be there when they need them on their worst day