fema
Every record this desk has filed under fema, newest first, each with the number of sources it can still show you.
GAO finds 86% of high-risk U.S. properties have no NFIP flood insurance, and says each fix it identifies would need an act of Congress
GAO's October 1 report to Congress finds 86 percent of U.S. properties it classifies as high flood risk carried no National Flood Insurance Program coverage as of April 2026, and estimates about 13 million such properties sit outside the FEMA zones that trigger the mandatory-purchase rule. Price, that narrow rule, and misreadings of what is covered all hold purchases down, GAO reports. It asks Congress, not FEMA, to consider widening the rule, publishing flood-risk data, requiring lender quotes, and raising coverage limits; one of five agencies that received the draft partly disagreed.
Also filed underflood-insurancenfipcongressdisaster-recovery
FEMA's caps on disaster grants to a household are $44,800 for housing and $44,800 for other needs in disasters declared since October 1, 2025, under a notice filed September 28, 2026, 362 days after the date it applies from; the 23 earlier notices of the cap, 2002 through 2024, each appeared by November 15.
FEMA filed a notice on September 28, 2026, for Federal Register publication September 29, setting the maximum amounts its Individuals and Households Program pays one household for one disaster: $44,800 for housing assistance and $44,800 for other needs assistance, for emergencies and major disasters declared on or after October 1, 2025. The previous caps, set in October 2024 for disasters declared from October 1, 2024, were $43,600 each. Companion notices filed the same morning raise the Serious Needs Assistance award to $790, from $770, and the Public Assistance small-project threshold to $1,093,800, from $1,062,900. All rest on a 2.9 percent rise in consumer prices in the 12 months to August 2025. The law requires an annual adjustment. The 23 earlier notices of the cap that a Federal Register search returns, 2002 through 2024, each appeared between October 6 and November 15 of the year their coverage began; Hugin found none in 2025. The notices do not say which cap FEMA applied to these disasters before now. No cap for disasters declared from October 1, 2026 had been filed by midday September 28.
Also filed underdisaster-aiddisaster-recoveryhousing-assistanceinflation-adjustmentfederal-register
GAO found FEMA left undecided 700 disaster-mitigation subapplications tied to about $2.2 billion, awarded no new BRIC grants from April 2025 to March 2026, and called the program 'wasteful and ineffective' without using its own results, which showed two goals met.
GAO report GAO-26-107774, released September 24, reviews FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which pays for work done before a disaster, such as flood control and seismic retrofits. As of March 2025, FEMA had awarded 1,245 subgrants from its first four cycles and allocated about $2.5 billion of almost $4.8 billion available, while 700 subapplications associated with about $2.2 billion sat undecided; about 50 had waited more than two years. FEMA announced the program's end on April 4, 2025, awarded no subgrants and obligated no funds from April 2025 to March 2026, and announced a restart on March 18, 2026, after a federal court ordered it to reverse the termination. FEMA officials told GAO they did not use performance information when the agency called the program 'wasteful and ineffective', though FEMA had met two of its goals. FEMA will now review the backlog, but a higher discount rate in benefit-cost analyses, 7 percent instead of 3.1 percent, may make some pending subapplications ineligible. DHS concurred with all seven recommendations.
Also filed undergaodisaster-mitigationgrantsresilienceflooding
FEMA's National Risk Index scores every county for disaster risk, and it decides which communities count as Disaster Resilience Zones. GAO found FEMA changed its inputs without testing the effect, and FEMA now says it will not update it.
The National Risk Index rates every U.S. county and census tract for 18 natural hazards, combining expected losses with social vulnerability and community resilience. FEMA uses it to designate Community Disaster Resilience Zones under a 2022 law, and planners use it to decide where to spend on mitigation. GAO's report of September 10 found FEMA swapped in a new social vulnerability data source in late 2025 that changed the values for more than half of counties, without checking how that moved anyone's overall risk score. Users told GAO the index gives them little they can act on, and by April 2025 FEMA had completed 14 of the 152 improvements its own public comment process produced. FEMA has folded the index into another tool and told GAO there is no plan to update it. DHS rejected GAO's recommendation to test changes before making them.
Also filed undergaodisastersriskresilienceclimate-weather
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