Strengthening Emergency Management: Lessons from Two Decades at GAO

Chris Currie, Director, Homeland Security and Justice, U.S. Government Accountability Office

In my 24 years at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), I’ve evaluated emergency management across federal, state and local levels. This is a truly bipartisan issue where consensus often emerges. Regardless of politics, stakeholders agree on the need for effective disaster response and recovery to protect lives and communities. There is also agreement that one of the few solutions to the growing damage is to invest in mitigation up front to avoid losses in the future.

GAO’s unique position as Congress’s investigative arm provides a top-level view, allowing us to identify systemic issues and recommend reforms that cross government agencies and sectors, leading to improvements in efficiency and accountability.

One of my biggest lessons is the huge contrast between immediate disaster response and long-term recovery. In the heat of crises when media cameras are everywhere, everyone steps up—elected officials, first responders, volunteers and communities rally to save lives and provide mutual aid, embodying resilience and humanity and implementing solutions. The painful lessons and lives lost after Hurricane Katrina made us learn hard lessons about proactive preparation and response.

But, after the media leaves, the short and long-term recovery phase typically devolves into frustration and bureaucracy, where red tape delays rebuilding and exacerbates suffering. The promises made and solutions offered by emergency managers in the response phase transition to the grant managers, cost estimators, adjustors, accountants and attorneys in the recovery phase. This often comes as a surprise to communities and survivors, who are left feeling tricked and betrayed. This was evident in the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene in 2024, where initial rescue efforts were heroic, but survivors felt forgotten after the disaster, facing months of paperwork and denials for aid, hindering economic and emotional recovery.

"If given the choice between rebuilding resiliently and rebuilding quickly, most folks will choose speed and forgo resilience. We have to change this dynamic and make it easier."

At GAO, we have been reporting on these challenges for decades, even recommending a Congressional Commission to fix many of these issues across the entire federal government in 2022. To get more attention on the issue, we also added “Improving the Delivery of Federal Disaster Assistance” to our High-Risk List in February 2025, highlighting how the system’s complexity impedes recovery and shifts focus away from resilience.

Our country’s current disaster recovery framework evolved piecemeal, with well-intentioned contributions from various agencies and stakeholders over decades, resulting in a cumbersome apparatus that leads to prolonged, painful recoveries and programs misaligned with survivors’ needs. For example, federal programs will allow spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per household on temporary solutions like hotel stays or installing and removing mobile housing units, yet forbid using those funds for permanent home repairs, even if they are less expensive. This inefficiency was stark in the 2023 Maui wildfires, where temporary housing costs ballooned while permanent rebuilding lagged due to regulatory barriers. Similarly, during the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires—the costliest disaster of the first half of 2025, contributing to over $100 billion in losses—federal programs clashed, with housing assistance from FEMA conflicting with HUD’s long-term recovery grants, leaving displaced families in limbo.

Further, there are also still too many disincentives to rebuilding in a resilient way. For example, there are too many federal grants that have different rules, requirements and timeframes and require different cost benefit assessments and other paperwork. This makes it difficult to use them individually, let alone combine them to rebuild in a resilient way. If given the choice between rebuilding resiliently and rebuilding quickly, most folks will choose speed and forgo resilience. We have to change this dynamic and make it easier.

Today, as we debate the future of emergency management and the role of FEMA, the bottom line is that we need to fix what is broken and not break with what is not broken.

The opinions and views expressed in this article are the authors alone and are not intended to reflect GAOs institutional views.

Disaster Recovery