Former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate says the magnitude of the California wildfires is akin to Hurricane Katrina, forever changing the community. He discusses the aftermath, the challenges ahead, and the potential impact of political divisions on recovery efforts.
Craig Fugate, who led the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Obama administration, has seen a lot of natural disasters. He knows the difference between destruction and utter devastation, and puts the nation's truly cataclysmic events — those that erase entire communities in a blink — in a category all their own. The wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles in recent days fit into that group, he said. 'This is your Hurricane Katrina,' Fugate said in an interview with The Times.
'It will forever change the community. It will be a touch point that everybody will remember, before and after. And for Los Angeles, this will become one of the defining moments of the community, the city and the county's history.' Many in L.A. and across California already understand the before: Bone-dry months with no rain. Deadly Santa Ana winds at hurricane strength. Built-out suburbs in one of the most densely populated regions in the nation, bumping up against kindling-dry forest and scrub land. It is the after that remains unclear — that stirs worry and fear. There are the immediate questions, like where people who have lost their homes will stay tonight, tomorrow and the rest of this week, and the longer-term ones, such as whether L.A. should rebuild in areas that remain vulnerable to the increasing cruelty of climate change. Another question that has loomed large: As the region tries to move forward, will politics get in the way? Scenes of sheer devastation in L.A. — from Altadena to the Palisades to Pacific Coast Highway — have been met with finger-pointing and barbs traded at the highest levels of government. Could the recovery be hampered by President-elect Donald Trump and his spat with Gov. Gavin Newsom over fire and water management in the state? Could Trump, who takes office in just over a week, unilaterally cut federal aid already promised by President Biden? Biden and current FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell on Friday stopped short of guaranteeing the funding would continue under Trump, with Biden saying he hoped it would. Criswell said that Biden followed the law in declaring the disaster declaration and that 'it shouldn't be rolled back.' Both Fugate and Peter T. Gaynor, a FEMA administrator in the first Trump administration, seemed more confident the aid would continue. 'That initial assistance is locked and loaded. It's coming,' Fugate said. 'President Trump has been in office before and he's seen disasters. He's visited disasters. And so he knows how complicated these things are. He's not new to this,' Gaynor said. 'He'll continue to support disaster victims no matter what state they are in or who they voted for, including in California.' But, Gaynor said, 'the way forward is going to be hard — and that's an understatement.' Fugate agreed. He also noted that much of the path forward won't be up to FEMA or the federal government. 'There are going to be some big challenges that even the federal government is not prepared to deal with,' he said. 'A lot of these decisions are going to have to be made at the local level.' The scope of destruction is hard to fathom. All week, the numbers have risen — now to at least 16 dead and more than 10,000 structures damaged or destroyed. Cost estimates have also continued to climb. JP Morgan on Thursday doubled its estimate from a day earlier, to about $50 billion, but a final total won't be known until the true extent of the damage and reconstruction costs are known. By comparison, Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm that devastated New Orleans, killed more than 1,800 and cost about $200 billion, according to federal estimates. According to Fugate and Gaynor, the full scope of the disastrous fires won't set in for a while — but the marching orders are clear. On Thursday, Biden pledged that the federal government will cover 100% of disaster assistance costs to California for the next 180 days, saying, 'Climate change is real.' For FEMA, they said, that means go time. 'The floodgates for federal assistance are now open, and there's a method to request and receive those resources and pay for it all — so that's the positive thing about what's going on,' Gaynor said. Every type of disaster has a unique footprint. In hurricanes and floods, everything is wet and much is ruined or destroyed, but belongings are still around to be found or salvaged. After fires, there are just barren landscapes where 'the only things that are left are barbecues, engine blocks and propane tanks,' Gaynor said. 'With wildfires, there's nothing left but ash. It's almost like a total erasure of their history. So for a lot of people, that's going to be the compounding trauma,' Fugate said. 'It's not only that they lost their home, they lost their memories.' For FEMA, that can mean less physical debris to clear — though there is still plenty of that. But there is also next to no infrastructure left. 'The only thing left are the roads,' Fugate said
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