{"id":344143,"date":"2026-07-18T01:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T01:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/344143\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T01:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T01:51:09","slug":"partisan-discrepancy-found-after-miami-denied-federal-aid-for-deadly-flooding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/344143\/","title":{"rendered":"Partisan discrepancy found after Miami denied federal aid for deadly flooding"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI, AZ (AZFamily) \u2014 The small Arizona towns of Miami and Globe have been denied federal disaster declarations<\/a> following deadly flooding in September that killed four people<\/a> in Gila County, leaving both communities facing a significant funding gap for recovery.<\/p>\n

Miami Councilman Phil Stewart and Town Manager Alexis Rivera reached out to Arizona\u2019s Family Investigates after their request was denied.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople died and that weighs heavily on us,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cThe denial is of course a big point of frustration for us. We\u2019re working very diligently to secure funding so we can make sure our municipality is safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

$60 million gap with $3 million budget<\/p>\n

Miami officials estimate the cost of rebuilding at approximately $60 million. The town\u2019s annual budget is just under $3 million.<\/p>\n

In response to questions, FEMA said the Trump administration has implemented a more rigorous review process for disaster declaration requests.<\/p>\n

Denial rate data shows partisan pattern<\/p>\n

Sarah Labowitz, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies disaster response, said FEMA\u2019s major disaster declaration denial rate held steady at about 15% over the last 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal government is supposed to come in when the state and local government have had their capacity to respond, it\u2019s gone beyond that,\u201d Labowitz said. \u201cSo, they phone a friend. They phone the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the Trump administration, Labowitz\u2019s research shows more than 50% of requests from Democratic governors have been denied, compared to about 17% denied from Republican governors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw just a lot of dismantling of the ways FEMA has traditionally run,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Miami committed to rebuilding despite denial<\/p>\n

Despite the rejection<\/a>, Stewart said the town intends to continue pursuing recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s slow and it\u2019s frustrating, and sometimes tempers will boil over, but you know, we have to stay the course, and we will stay the course and get this done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Labowitz also noted that FEMA has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since President Trump took office. She said she hopes a newly confirmed leader will result in a less partisan process going forward.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2026 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI, AZ (AZFamily) \u2014 The small Arizona towns of Miami and Globe have been denied federal disaster declarations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[141057,141059,141060,141058,141062,141056,141061,123,141055,141054,125,124],"class_list":["post-344143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-arizona-flooding","tag-arizona-monsoon","tag-fema-disaster-relief","tag-fema-flood-funding","tag-fema-trump","tag-globe-flooding","tag-major-disaster-declaration","tag-miami","tag-miami-flooding","tag-miami-globe-az","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}