Kansas asked for needed disaster relief. Will Trump refuse like he did Arkansas? | Opinion

Editor’s update: On May 23, Sen. Jerry Moran’s office told the Star that Kansas’ emergency request had been granted. Federal disaster funds will be made available to help local governments recover from the March windstorms and wildfires.

Kansas burned in March.

Wind storms wreaked havoc across the state. Eight people died in western Kansas, where blowing dust reduced visibility to “near zero” and contributed to a multi-vehicle highway pileup. A nursing home in Yates Center caught on fire and 38 residents had to be evacuated, thanks to windblown blazes. Wildfires popped up everywhere around the state, scorching land and damaging buildings.

It was a disaster.

Gov. Laura Kelly certainly thought so. In April, she asked President Donald Trump to make a presidential disaster declaration so Kansas could tap into federal funds to make repairs.

“Given the extent of the damage, it will be important to have federal support available to assist rural electric cooperatives and municipally owned utilities rebuild their electric utility infrastructure, and local levels of government repair their buildings and roadways,” she said.

The GOP members of Kansas’ congressional delegation thought so, too.

Last week, all of them — Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall, along with Reps. Ron Estes, Tracey Mann and Derek Schmidt — signed a letter asking the president to grant Kelly’s request.

“The impact of this storm system cannot be adequately described, as it ultimately led to the demolition of essential infrastructure and the tragic loss of life,” they wrote. “It is imperative that federal support is provided to allow our communities to recover from the damage.”

So far, though, no response from the White House.

Getting FEMA out of disaster business?

Maybe that’s nothing to worry about. Disaster requests “can take weeks to days to receive a decision on,” Grace Hoge, Kelly’s spokesperson, said Monday in an email. The Kansas Division of Emergency Management, which made the formal request “does not have concerns” at this time.

That sounds optimistic, though.

Trump, after all, has mused about shutting down the Federal Emergency Management Agency, getting the federal government out of the disaster recovery business and leaving all that stuff to the states.

“I’d like to see the states take care of disasters,” he said in January. “Let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen.”

It’s not just talk.

The White House just denied disaster assistance to Arkansas following deadly tornadoes in April — even though the state is run by his former spokesperson, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

The administration also rejected aid to West Virginia after February floods, and to the state of Washington after a devastating “bomb cyclone” killed two people there. His administration is also pulling back from continued federal funding for North Carolina’s recovery from Hurricane Helene.

Which means everything is going to plan.

“The federal government focuses its support on truly catastrophic disasters,” an administration spokesman told Stateline last week. States, he said, should take care of “routine emergencies” themselves.

In other words: You’re on your own.

Red states hit harder

Kansas officials are still hoping to get $8.5 million from the feds for the March storm, according to the GOP letter. Not a lot, as far as state and federal budgeting goes.

But a disaster here and a disaster there can add up. The “Atlas of Disaster,” a database from New York University, reveals that Kansas received $275 million in FEMA funds between 2011 and 2024. (Missouri received even more: $747 million.)

Imagine all that money gone, and it starts to sting a bit. Kansas, you might have noticed, tends to be tornado-prone.

It’s not just Kansas. Trump’s supporters across the country are likely to feel the most pain if he truly and fully pulls back from disaster funding. The NYU researchers found that Republican-voting red states — which have just under 43% of the population — have more than 56% of all declared disasters.

That’s a lot of pain to survive unaided.

Maybe there is no reason for concern. Maybe Kansas will receive special treatment that other states haven’t and get Trump’s approval for Kelly’s disaster request. Maybe he will shift course.

Or maybe the president means what he says. Let’s hope not. That would be the real disaster.

This story was originally published May 6, 2025 at 5:04 AM.