While Trump overhauls FEMA, Mississippi tornado survivors await
assistance
[May 20, 2025]
By SOPHIE BATES
TYLERTOWN, Miss. (AP) — More than two months after a tornado destroyed
his home, Brian Lowery still looks through the rubble, hoping to find a
tie clip his mother gave him, made from the center stone of her wedding
band.
“I still have hope,” Lowery said.
Lowery considers himself lucky. He, his wife and 13-year-old son made it
to safety before the tornado ripped apart their trailer home of 15
years. Despite his positive outlook, Lowery admits he’s frustrated;
Mississippi’s request for federal aid is still pending before the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, meaning badly needed assistance has
not yet made it to his hard-hit community of Tylertown.
“I don’t know what you got to do or what you got to have to be able to
be declared for a federal disaster area because this is pretty bad,”
Lowery said. “We can’t help you because, whatever, we’re waiting on a
letter; we’re waiting on somebody to sign his name. You know, all that.
I’m just over it.”
Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves asked the Trump administration
for a major disaster declaration on April 1 after 18 tornadoes tore
through the state on March 14 and 15, leaving seven people dead and
hundreds of homes destroyed or damaged.
The declaration would allow the state to access a wide range of FEMA
resources, including financial aid for individuals and for government
agencies still removing debris and repairing infrastructure.

“We don’t have a declaration yet. People are still hurting,” said Royce
McKee, emergency management director for Walthall County, which includes
Tylertown.
Mississippi’s request comes at a time of upheaval for FEMA. The agency's
acting administrator, Cameron Hamilton, was recently ousted after he
publicly disagreed with proposals to dismantle FEMA, an idea President
Donald Trump has floated in calling the agency “very bureaucratic” and
“very slow.”
David Richardson, FEMA’s new acting administrator, committed himself to
executing Trump’s vision for the agency. He also previewed potential
policy changes, saying there could be “more cost-sharing with states”
and that FEMA would coordinate federal assistance “when deemed
necessary.”
Walthall County was hit especially hard by the massive storm system that
wreaked havoc across multiple states. The storm spawned two significant
tornadoes in the county, where four people died.
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Brian Lowery stands before what remains of his home, which was
ripped apart by a tornado, in Tylertown, Miss., on Thursday, May 15,
2025. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)

McKee said the county has sunk an estimated $700,000 into cleaning
up the damage but can’t afford to spend more and has halted
operations until it receives federal help.
“We need federal help, and we need it desperately, and we need it
now,” said Bobby McGinnis, a Tylertown resident and firefighter. “I
know President Trump said that — America first, we’re going to help
our American folks first. But we haven’t seen the federal folks down
here.”
While Mississippi has been waiting, a similar major disaster
declaration request out of Arkansas after the storms hit was denied,
appealed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and finally
approved on May 13.
“We are encouraged by FEMA’s decision regarding Arkansas’
application from the same storm system that hit Mississippi,” Scott
Simmons, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency’s director of
external affairs, said in a statement. “We anxiously await a
positive decision.”
Mississippi lawmakers have been pressing federal officials on the
issue. During a congressional hearing in early May, Republican
Mississippi Rep. Michael Guest asked U.S. Homeland Security
Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, to push
forward the request.
“I would ask you if you could make sure that you could do everything
to expedite that request,” Guest said. ”It is impacting my local
jurisdictions with debris cleanup. It is impacting people as they
seek to recover.”
Republican Mississippi U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith also asked Noem
about FEMA assistance and the administration’s new approach to the
agency.
“President Trump has been very clear that he believes that the way
that FEMA exists today should not continue,” Noem responded. “He
wants to make sure that those reforms are happening where states are
empowered to do the response and trained and equipped, and then the
federal government would come in and support them and financially be
there when they need them on their worst day.”
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