Last week, I attended the Disaster Recovery Research Consortium hosted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. As part of the conference, we contacted our representatives and scheduled meetings “on the hill.” We got a crash course in Capitol Hill 101 on how you advocate for issues you care about to your representatives. We talked with them about how the country’s disaster response and recovery system is broken and needs major reform. However, we have significant concerns about the dismantling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) capacity to respond to disasters by the Department of Homeland Security(DHS) less than 3 weeks before Hurricane Season, Fire Season. Without FEMA and HUD’s expert help, equipment, and financial support, our state and community would struggle to respond to disasters, leading to greater losses of life and property. I used my research and some stories I’ve collected while working with the North Carolina Inclusive Disaster Recovery Network to show our representatives that while state and local governments need to invest more in emergency management, disaster recovery, and resilience, they cannot ramp up capacity immediately. And that states rely on these FEMA programs, like Emergency Management Preparedness Grants, Hazard Mitigation Grants, Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), and others to maintain their State and local emergency management systems are defenseless without it. This experience showed me how much of my research is applicable and essential to policy-making. It also really showed the key ideas from my master’s thesis in action: that community voices can be bright spots for positive change in disaster policy work and can champion policy that makes a positive change in the disaster system broadly.

-Kayla Gilligan