The severe flooding in West Virginia on February 15 that killed two people and left up to $40 million in damage was an early test of the Trump administration’s disaster response, and despite protests that Trump is “gutting the government,” it has gone off without a hitch.
This accomplishment can be attributed in part to the administration’s laser focus on providing aid, rather than the moralizing and social justice sentiments that hampered recent disaster relief operations under Joe Biden’s leadership.
Last week, Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., and acting FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton went to the community of Welch, near the Kentucky and Tennessee borders, to see the devastation firsthand and to demonstrate victims how the federal government is responding.
“Figuring out the next steps and facilitating federal assistance to get folks back to a better place is what I was sent to Washington to do,” Justice said on Fox News Digital.
“At the end of the day, getting back to our home states and helping folks deal with real issues impacting them is exactly why we as a party were able to win by such a wide margin.”
And what were some of the sorts of government help that Justice and Hamilton were advertising in Welch, not just informing flood victims about? In less than a month, some federal agencies have experienced their own rush of community relief.
FEMA, among other things, has provided assistance with temporary housing, which the Biden administration frequently struggled with.
The Small Business Administration declared a catastrophe in certain counties and made loans available. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is providing finance for renovations, while the USDA is giving groceries assistance.
The real story here is that there is no story. Everything is working as it should be, which is something we were not accustomed to under Joe Biden.
Many residents have expressed gratitude for the whole-of-government approach, including local elementary school principal Sarah Diaz, who appreciated Justice’s visit to her school.
“It’s awesome to see how much he supports our families with all this tremendous loss that we’ve gone through and that we’re bouncing back and filled with resilience,” Diaz was quoted as saying by WVVA News. “We’re excited.”
The children, it appears, were most excited to see the senator’s famous dog, Babydog, who serves as his constant and steadfast sidekick.
We are all aware that the absence of evidence is not the same as the presence of evidence, but six weeks into this disaster, we are not witnessing the same level of rage and frustration as we did in the aftermath of last fall’s North Carolina and Florida flooding.
This time, there were no federal officials warning responders to avoid houses with Trump signs, and there were no photo ops offering a few hundred dollars as if they were winning the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes.
The true story here is that there is no story. Everything is working as it should, which is something we were not used to under Joe Biden.
It does and should make us wonder whether FEMA, and who knows what other agencies, have been focused on their core missions or, instead, on pursuing utopian fantasies of equity and intersectionality.
After all, if FEMA was wasting time and energy warning about fictitious violent Trump supporters, they were not fully focused on the task at hand.
The administration’s response to the flooding in West Virginia demonstrates that the government can trim unnecessary fat from programs while maintaining or even improving service levels. This, of course, will not deter Democrats from claiming the sky is falling.
Justice stated, “Watching Democrats run around the country with their hair on fire, defending damn-near fraudulent levels of wasteful expenditures, and calling President Trump every derogatory political term possible is a completely delusional hill to die on and, quite frankly, a waste of time. West Virginians overwhelmingly voted against this, as did people across the country.
For decades, when Democrats have been in charge of the Defense Department, the FBI, or FEMA, agency leaders have repeatedly stated that “our first priority is diversity, inclusion, or social justice,” but this is clearly absurd.
Defense prioritizes conflict resolution over diversity, law enforcement prioritizes crime reduction over equity, and disaster relief prioritizes assisting individuals rather than labeling Trump supporters as violent.
If the current situation in West Virginia is any indication of how the Trump administration will deal with future disasters, the country is in good hands.
This new approach is extremely welcome after four years of Biden’s feckless and incompetent regime.
