Overlapping disasters create challenges amid Trump cuts

(Bloomberg) --Across the US this week, different disasters — from Canadian wildfire smoke darkening the skies in the Midwest and Northeast to extreme heat along the East Coast to catastrophic flooding in Texas — are disrupting daily life and putting people's health at risk.

When multiple weather catastrophes play out like this at the same time, or in quick succession, experts refer to them as compound events. As climate change makes compound events more likely, experts warned that grappling with them is further complicated by the Trump administration's cuts to disaster work.

The American disaster complex has long been struggling to cope with the increasing number of costly crises, but recent cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have made the situation worse, according to Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, Columbia University's faculty director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. "We are not as well prepared as we were a few years ago," he said.

"It leaves us in a really difficult spot," said Samantha Penta, an associate professor specializing in emergency preparedness at the University at Albany, noting the scale back of federal resources means "there's a lot of pressure" on state and local governments to manage complex crises on their own. 

John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at the University of California at Merced, said scientists expect compound calamities to increase as wildfires are ignited during more frequent heat waves. And a climate-charged super El Niño could bring more extreme rain, flooding and landslides across a swath of states.

"If you increase one type of extreme, the odds are that you're going to get hit with another extreme that results in a larger impact," he said.

When multiple disasters hit the same place simultaneously, local officials are tapping the same limited pool of resources and personnel to respond to both. And sometimes these responses may conflict, said Schlegelmilch.

One example of this is playing out right now in New York and elsewhere, where smoky skies are hitting at the same time as high heat. When there's high heat, officials may recommend kids and families take advantage of local splash pads, or playgrounds with water, to help cool down. But that recommendation makes less sense when the outside air quality is dangerous.

Hazardous smoke during heat waves can also slow down emergency response, according to Michael Jerrett, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California at Los Angeles.

"There's increased demand for emergency services and when the responders are on site, they often are dealing with more complicated cases and they're staying longer," he said.

Different problems can arise when repeat disasters hit the same place before it is fully recovered. This is what's happening now in central Texas. Heavy rains last year resulted in flash flooding along the Guadalupe River, killing more than a hundred people. Despite still recovering from those severe floods, the region now faces new flooding.

"Every disaster starts out with a local response," said Josh Morton, president of the International Association of Emergency Managers and an emergency management director in Saluda County, South Carolina. "Now once local resources are overwhelmed, that's whenever we turn to the state." If the state is overwhelmed, it may turn to other states and the federal level, he added.

So if there's overlapping disasters, or back-to-back ones happening so fast a place hasn't recovered when the second event hits, local officials may get overwhelmed faster and look for outside help sooner.

And if multiple locations are looking for help from the federal level at the same time, this is when the national emergency managers can get stretched. While that's not the case right now, Morton said, there are plenty of examples of it happening in recent years, such as in 2024 when devastating hurricanes Helene and Milton hit the East Coast within weeks of each other.

One of the best ways communities can prepare for the compound events is by investing more in preparedness and resiliency, experts say. But this is the type of FEMA funding that has seen some of the deepest cuts under President Donald Trump. "We really do need to spend more money on the preparedness side," said Schlegelmilch, adding that doing so helps wean local and state governments off of relying so much on federal help.