With FEMA on the Sidelines States Must Step Up Shelter Plans 

Disasters Call for pallet-based Strategic Shelter Reserve 

Another Atlantic hurricane season is upon us, with 19 major storms predicted to form, nine becoming hurricanes, and four reaching devastating Category 3 status. That’s a bit lower than last year’s unusually active season with 11 hurricanes, but still above the 30-year average, and more are predicted to hit landfall this year, ripping communities to shreds and displacing thousands of families.  

Meanwhile, many of the areas hardest hit last year are still in the process of repairing, recovering, rebuilding, and working to restore normalcy, and healing the mental and emotional scars.  

At the same time, conversations are underway in Washington over the future of FEMA and its disaster response and recovery mission. The Trump administration recently cut 20 percent of FEMA’s staff and proposed eliminating the agency altogether and shifting functions to the states and private-sector solutions. At a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, lawmakers and administration officials discussed these changes. Overall, there was consensus that improved communication, transparency, and efficiency was needed to ensure the agency fulfills its mission. Regardless, communities across the country must be ready in the event disaster hits in the months ahead.  

Are localities ready to shelter? 

One of the toughest hurricane-response challenges is sheltering disaster-displaced residents after their homes are damaged, destroyed, or too dangerous to stay in or return to. But many communities seriously lack enough affordable and secure emergency shelter (up to five days), recovery shelter (three to 90 days), or temporary housing (14-120 days), let alone permanent replacement housing. 

Typical emergency or temporary shelter solutions—RVs, trailers, large public buildings, hotels—often aren’t ready or equipped for large numbers of displaced people. They can also be uncomfortable for longer than a few days, or complicate and slow the economic and community recovery efforts.  

Plus, the usual shelter solutions often need to divide and disperse families, friends, and neighbors—at the very time people need to be together as they face often shocking and bewildering damage to their homes, businesses, and schools, and disruption of their lives, jobs, and activities. 

Thinking anew about disaster shelter 

Whatever FEMA’s future status, many states and localities are turning to smarter, more sustainable temporary shelter solutions. For instance, last October, Pasco County, Florida, turned to private Pallet shelters for people displaced by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.  

Pallet shelters can be assembled in about an hour to begin housing people immediately. The reusable units can be set up quickly in almost any location, usually in 72 hours after a disaster hits. Pallets can also be set up to create a “village” that helps restore a sense of community for displaced persons to stay together with their family members and pets.  

Pallet units can also be disassembled and stored for future disaster needs and even trucked from central locations or other communities to places that need them. This is especially important because it’s hard to predict exactly where hurricanes will hit and how much damage they’ll do.  

Just as life disasters can make people homeless, so can natural disasters. Pallet housing solutions can address both. Indeed, Tampa HOPE, a shelter run by Catholic Charities, installed 99 Pallet portable living units on its campus and plans to add 90 more by mid-2025, local radio station WUSF reported. The pallets can sustain 170 mph winds and 200 mph gusts. 

Time for a Strategic Disaster Housing Reserve 

Amid the rising threat of more violent and costly climate-driven tropical cyclones, severe storms, flooding, droughts, wildfires, and winter storms, new shelter solutions like Pallets are long overdue.  

Optimally, states could stockpile these as a “strategic disaster housing reserves” for rapid deployment and assembly before disasters strike. These not only could swiftly shelter displaced people but be deployed cost-effectively and without supply chain constraints.  

Disaster preparedness decision makers don’t always recognize where pallet shelters fit because they’re not the usual emergency shelter options. As states and localities take on FEMA’s responsibilities, they can seize the opportunity that change offers to rethink disaster relief and see Pallets as a vital step to housing displaced people on the path to permanent housing solutions—and community recovery.