FEMA Has An Equity Problem

Short Wave

NPR

News, Life Sciences, Daily News, Astronomy, Nature, Science

4.7 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2021

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When a disaster like a hurricane or wildfire destroys a house, the clock starts ticking. It gets harder for sick people to take their medications, medical devices may stop working without electricity, excessive temperatures, mold, or other factors may threaten someone's health. Every day without stable shelter puts people in danger.

The federal government is supposed to help prevent that cascade of problems, but an NPR investigation finds that the people who need help the most are often less likely to get it. NPR climate reporter Rebecca Hersher explains.

Check out Rebecca's full investigation here.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:04.3	Oh, who's you? Do we bring the cookies?
0:07.3	Yeah.
0:08.3	Oh, okay, cool.
0:10.1	In May, producer Ryan Kelman and I drove out to De Quincey, Louisiana.
0:15.5	This is Southwest Louisiana.
0:17.7	It's really flat and marshy.
0:20.0	The roads are in rough shape.
0:22.0	This area got hit by two hurricanes last year.
0:25.6	So this must be...
0:27.5	The person we're going to meet is named Donnie Spite.
0:31.5	She lives in a gray mobile home a couple miles off the main road.
0:36.3	It's surrounded by tall pine trees, so it's pretty quiet, except for her charawatts.
0:43.0	Goliath and public.
0:46.5	Goliath is really small.
0:48.8	Donnie's husband Steve chose him because Goliath was the littlest one in the litter.
0:53.7	Steve worked as a pipe fitter in the petrochemical plants nearby.
0:57.2	And his nickname was termite.
0:59.4	They call him that because he could crawl through the pipes.
1:02.7	They were short as I am.
1:05.1	That's small one.
1:07.6	By the time they brought Goliath home, Steve was retired and he used a wheelchair to get
	...

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