On July 21, 2026, a deluge of rain hit Lewis and Upshur counties, destroying hundreds of homes, washing out streets and bridges and leaving people stranded inside a local shopping center.
Two weeks later, President Donald Trump declared a federal disaster, unlocking at least $6 million to help Lewis, Upshur, Ritchie and Pleasant counties rebuild.
Over the last two years, Presidents Joe Biden and Trump have declared three other disasters in West Virginia, sending around $100 million to aid recovery from floods and storms across the state.
But the federal response to these frequent flooding disasters in West Virginia could change.
Washington is considering a disaster system that asks states to shoulder more of the costs and responsibilities for recovery. West Virginia has more than $1 billion in the bank, but has devoted very little to dedicated flood resilience. As federal policy shifts, the consequences of those state choices could increasingly fall on the small communities least able to absorb them.
Congress and the Trump Administration mull FEMA changes
At the beginning of his second term, Trump signed an executive order that set up a council to review how the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, conducts itself and offer policy proposals. Those were released in May.
Concurrently, lawmakers in Congress have also put together a bipartisan package to reform FEMA, though it has stalled in the House of Representatives.
Both branches noted that FEMA has long been criticized for taking too long to respond to disasters and dragging out the recovery process due to a maze of bureaucratic red tape.
While the proposals for changing FEMA vary, both plan to do two things: get funds out quicker to disaster areas and place more onus on state and local governments to pick up the cost.
Changes would leave states responsible for more of the cost of recovery
Anne Brody, state government relations director for the American Flood Coalition, a nonprofit devoted to studying best practices for local and state governments to deal with floods, warned West Virginia lawmakers earlier this month that the changes could mean smaller FEMA payments.
“As states are charged with taking on more financial responsibility, they’re going to need to build up state budgets to prepare for and recover from disasters,” she told the Joint Committee on Flooding.
One FEMA proposal would have aid rendered on a sliding scale, depending on what steps a state has taken to prepare for natural disasters. Another would raise the bar for what is considered a federal disaster. Brendan Muckian-Bates, a policy advocate for the Appalachian Flood Resilience Coalition, said these approaches could force the state to deal with disasters on its own.
“The state would have to absorb the cost itself, which doesn’t really seem to be like something that West Virginia wants to do or is really able to do at the moment,” he said.
Flood committee Co-Chair Del. Dean Jeffries, R-Kanawha, said the committee is looking at potential changes coming from the federal government and will devote the next few meetings to learning about potential ways to deal with it.
However, the changes at FEMA are already underway. At that same Joint Flood Committee meeting, Matthew Blackwood, the director of West Virginia Emergency Management, told lawmakers that he anticipates major changes with Public Assistance, the program that FEMA manages that helps restore public infrastructure damaged from a flood. Over the last two years, the state has received more than $40 million from that program.
FEMA said the reduced role is part of getting back to the agency’s mission, despite the agency’s founding document never discussing splits between state and federal responsibility.
“FEMA is returning to the core principle that disasters are best managed when they are locally executed, state-managed, and federally supported,” a FEMA spokesperson wrote in an email.
Lawmakers haven’t addressed West Virginia’s flood readiness
If attempts over the last decade by state lawmakers to address West Virginia’s flood readiness are any indicator, the transition towards state management could face obstacles.
Following the 2016 flood that killed more than two dozen people, lawmakers set up an Office of Flood Resiliency devoted to studying and implementing changes in local communities. However, they didn’t fund it.
The Republican supermajority rejected multiple attempts to fund the office. In 2024, then-Gov. Jim Justice proposed $50 million for the office in his budget. Lawmakers cut it out. The following year, after a flood killed several people in McDowell County, Del. Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, tried to amend $50 million in the budget bill for the office. Lawmakers rejected it.
Finally, during the last session, lawmakers put $5 million in the office.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey hasn’t laid out firm plans as to how to deal with changes at FEMA. Ann Moore, a spokesperson for his office, said the administration is keeping track of changes at the agency and will adjust accordingly.
West Virginia has nearly $2 billion in tax dollars on hand to potentially address the problem, with $1.3 billion in the state’s emergency Rainy Day Fund and nearly $500 million in the personal income tax reserve fund. But lawmakers have been reluctant to tap the Rainy Day Fund, citing concerns about hurting the state’s bond ratings.
Sean O’Leary, a budget analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said that even if lawmakers chose to tap into a reserve fund, they’d have to find new revenue sources to continue funding flood mitigation programs.
“It’s just not feasible to cut somewhere in the budget and put it here,” he said. “You’re just a shell game at that point.”
O’Leary said lawmakers could look into modest raises in the state’s severance tax on natural resources, raising taxes on West Virginians with the highest incomes or decoupling from tax write-offs being offered by the Trump Administration.
Lack of state and federal funding could mean leaving small communities behind
For communities across the state, the price of doing nothing could be high. Headwaters Economics, a non-profit think tank looking at rural economies, found West Virginia ranked third in the country for communities with low capacity to bounce back from natural disasters.
Looking at metrics like staffing in state and local government, proximity to resources and household demographics, Kristin Smith, a researcher for Headwaters, said low-capacity communities tend to get shut out of federal funds that could help them prepare for disasters.
“Shifting more responsibility to the states won’t eliminate capacity gaps. It could make it even more consequential,” she said. “States with many low-capacity communities will need to account for those differences and implement systems that ensure communities with fewer staff and resources are not left behind.”
As floods continue to wrack the state, more lawmakers have found themselves on board with supporting flood resiliency. Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis, said he will support more resources to deal with the issue.
“I will now be one of those folks that are in the trenches on flood funding,” he said. “Once you’ve seen it firsthand, you know this is something you’ve got to make a priority.”
