Trump says he is considering 'getting rid of' US disaster response agency FEMA

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - US President Donald Trump said on Friday he is considering the potential elimination of the US federal response agency, as the nation faces increasingly dire natural disasters.

Trump floated the idea of having the agency's responsibilities transferred to the states, whom he said would be paid "a percentage" to address crises. He accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of being "very bureaucratic, and it's very slow," claiming a state "governor can handle something very quickly."

"I'll also be signed an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA. I think, frankly, FEMA is not good," he said as he toured disaster zones in flood-wracked North Carolina. "I think we're going to recommend that FEMA go away, and we pay directly. We pay a percentage to the state, but the state should fix this."

The comments come as the US grapples with increasingly severe natural disasters, from tornadoes in the Midwest, to hurricanes across the eastern seaboard and Gulf coast, and fires in the West.

Ongoing fires in southern California, where Trump is to visit later Friday, have burned through tens of thousands of acres as firefighters struggle to rein them in amid historically dry conditions and strong seasonal winds. Meanwhile, an exceptionally rare winter storm has brought freezing temperatures and dumped historic amounts of snow across large swathes of the Sun Belt.

The storm prompted the first ever Blizzard Warning in the Gulf Coast as parts of the South were forced to come to a standstill amid highway closures that are typically reserved for hurricane season. The full extent of the damage remains unknown, including to key agricultural sites, but ten people have been confirmed killed, half of whom died in traffic accident near the Mexican border.