New and pending disaster claims have accumulated in response to a directive from the Homeland Security Secretary directive for increased review before state and local disbursement. Andrew Rumbach, a climate and communities expert at the Urban Institute, spoke with The New York Times about the processing bottleneck. “Even in the best of times, the complexity and uncertainty of the FEMA approval and reimbursement process is a huge source of stress and a huge source of uncertainty within communities,” Rumbach said. “This just really adds to that.”

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