Tornado victims blocked from federal recovery aid after Trump denied request

Arkansas tornado survivors denied federal aid after Trump rejected disaster declaration.

(CNN) — Disaster survivors in Arkansas left homeless by recent tornadoes have been blocked from receiving federal recovery aid after President Donald Trump rejected the state’s request to declare a major disaster in March.

The Trump administration denied Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ request for individual and public assistance following an outbreak of severe storms and tornadoes that also affected neighboring Mississippi and Missouri and left more than 40 people dead.

The denial follows executive orders signed by Trump seeking to shift the burden of disaster response and recovery from the federal government onto states, as extreme weather becomes increasingly destructive and costly in a warming world. It is unclear how states will fill the financial void, which for decades has been viewed as a federal responsibility given the wide-reaching, multi-state nature of disasters.

Both Trump and Department of Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem have made it clear they want to eliminate FEMA, which spends billions each year helping people get temporary housing and rebuild after storms. FEMA also funds public assistance for municipalities after disasters, including tornadoes, hurricanes or wildfires.

The denial of the request, dated April 11, said the Trump administration had “determined that the damage from this event was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state, affected local governments, and voluntary agencies. Accordingly, we have determined that supplemental federal assistance is not necessary.”

It’s so far unclear whether Missouri and Mississippi will face similar denials. CNN reached out to the governor’s office in those states for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment on why it denied the disaster request.

In 2023, former President Joe Biden granted an Arkansas disaster declaration request following deadly tornadoes within 48 hours of the storms.

As CNN has reported, billions of dollars in disaster aid were recently sitting untouched. More than $100 billion of previously awarded grant money and disaster assistance was frozen at FEMA for weeks, as agency staff awaited guidance for issuing payments in compliance with Trump’s executive orders restricting funding for immigration programs and sanctuary cities, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN last month. FEMA has distributed most of its backlogged funds in recent days, and the temporarily frozen funding is different from individual disaster assistance funding.

Sanders has appealed the denial, writing in her letter to Trump “the state and its citizens are in dire need of assistance to recover, rebuild, and mitigate further loss.”

“Without the support of a Major Disaster Declaration, Arkansas will face significant challenges in assuming full responsibility and achieving an effective recovery from this event,” Sanders wrote.

In lieu of federal funding, volunteer organizations in Arkansas are stepping up to try to fill the gap, said Lacey Kanipe, the spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Public Safety.

“The state has disaster recovery programs that provide a percentage of what FEMA may provide to survivors,” Kanipe said, adding it’s hard to quantify exactly how big the gulf is between what the state can support and what the federal government can provide.

Biden FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell previously told CNN that FEMA’s mission isn’t to replace first responders. Instead, it is “to support state and local jurisdictions with their needs.”

“They’re the ones that are on the ground,” Criswell told CNN in January. “They’re the ones that are responding, and we want to be able to bring them the resources as quickly as possible.”

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