4.1 Length of Time & Frustration
As we covered in the literature review, the buyout process is arduous, involves multiple layers of communication, and regularly takes several years to complete. Unsurprisingly, a recurring theme found in the data was that the program delays and the lengthy time frame required for program approval and distribution of HMGP funds created problems for both residents and local administrators, leading to feelings of frustration. In fact, ten of the interviewees emphasized residents’ frustration with the prolonged buyout process, as exemplified in the following quote:
We have just made the first acquisition offers within the last 30 days [close to three years after Hurricane Matthew]. Just how slow these programs are creates frustration for these people. Some have moved out, some have moved back in, some have [left the program]. -Interview
In addition, our interviewees noted that longer buyouts do not only impose greater stress on participants, but also increase the likelihood for the household to be affected by future flooding. This was noted in thirteen of the interviews, and is reflected in the following statement:
But it shouldn’t take three years for a grant application to get approved and another year for the house to get elevated. Because, in that time, that house could have been flooded four more times! You know, it’s crazy. And so I understand the frustration. -Interview
This finding is also evidenced in our analysis of newspaper articles, where mentions of frustration became more prevalent as the process dragged on, with increased hits on this keyword around anniversaries of the disaster, the end of the year, and in August or September of 2018, around the time of Hurricane Florence (see Figure 2). The following quotes illustrate this point:
It has been a year since Hurricane Matthew damaged or destroyed at least 200 properties in Kinston and Lenoir County and officials are still waiting on federal funding for the buyout program.
Sam Kornegay, Lenoir County emergency planner, said his office has received many calls from people affected by the flooding that followed Matthew in October 2016. “They are asking ‘Where we’re at?’” Kornegay said. “‘How long is it going to take?’ We’ll know soon and then they will know. We’re on FEMA time.”
-Article, The Free Press, November 2017
[Community development manager, Andrew] DeIonno added, ‘It’s not hard to understand their frustration. After all, we’re talking three years and the money is there. We understand why they are upset when they call or come out here.’
-Article, Tarboro Weekly, Dec 2019
Newlyweds [names redacted] were living in the Forest Hills community in 2016 when their new home of just three months was flooded by Matthew... "I think now the feeling is more frustration than anything because we keep being told, 'Oh, it's (buyout)coming. It's coming. Oh, there's this. Oh, there's that.' So we still have nothing to show for all of the talk that we hear."
-Article, The Goldsboro News, September 25, 2018
In some cases, this frustration led to anger against local administrators and accusations of impropriety in the buyout process. These conditions appear to deteriorate public trust in the local administrators while also straining relationships with state employees who residents clearly believe share responsibility in the blame for delays. This was evidenced in the interviews with two administrators working for small towns:
Well, we’ve [the administrator and residents] had ups and downs. You know, we’ve become friends. I think that they trust me, but they got so frustrated with the process and they would get angry and they would be upset and they would accuse me of things. They accused me of not caring because they were black and I’m white, and if they had been white, this process would have taken, would have been done a long time ago. -Interview
I feel like the last program during Matthew, probably, they [the residents] felt like the state wasn’t here to help them so a lot of them are applying for ICC [Increased Cost of Compliance] coverage through their flood insurance. -Interview
Reflecting back to the extant literature on trust, we see evidence in our interviews that the length of time was related to perceptions of uncaring, which, in turn, degrades trust. In response to the wait, residents were frustrated, stressed, or upset. This may have a causal relationship with attrition in program participation over the length of the buyout process, or that attrition may be caused by other compounding factors.
Recoveries from other hurricanes can give insight into how waiting reduces the success of the program overall. For example, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, an administrator with a local agency implementing the HMGP in Houston estimated that upwards of 20% of owners who applied to buyouts changed their minds by the time they were approved (Binder, Greer, and Zavar 2020). Additionally, the length of time means that some of the poorest residents cannot afford a buyout, because they cannot afford spending money on both the property they can no longer live in, and the property that they temporarily move to for an extended duration of time. Finally, many residents waiting on buyouts remain in flood-damaged properties, where dangerous conditions, such as structural damage or mold, can lead to negative health outcomes. The result of waiting is decreased trust, negative health outcomes, and a waste of time and resources for the homeowner and also for all levels of government.
4.2 Transparency and Misinformation
Our findings suggest that another factor that affects trust is misinformation coming from all levels of government. There were a number of references by local administrators to receiving incorrect, misleading, or simply unclear information from federal or state administrators that they perceived as increasing confusion among participants. This is reflected in other contemporary research, where community officials note that they get little help from the state (Smith et al. 2021).
One example of confusing information from the state level occurred when approval letters were sent out to residents that stated that their homes met the standards necessary for participation in the program. According to the county-level administrator, residents and some local administrators interpreted the letter as approving them for a program buyout when, in reality, it was merely a confirmation that they met the minimum standards for approval. However, due to funding limitations, not all residents that received the letter would be approved as not all qualified projects could be funded. Noting this issue, one county-level administrator commented on how this process played out:
You know you expect to get the correct guidance at the state level. And not throwing them under the bus – a lot of things they were trying to do and they were trying to make it [the HMGP recovery] as efficient as possible. But the standards of FEMA and the federal government have for these programs is really strict depending on what you apply for and there’s not one that mimics the other. And so, if you’re not really familiar with those federal guidelines as to how that program has to go – you end up telling people things- and not on purpose – but you end up telling people things that are not entirely true…We were giving information to citizens that was given to us from the state and it was just not true. We’ve had a lot of negative feedback in that aspect. –Interview
This is echoed in news reports of resident experiences:
They [a buyout applicant household] asked FEMA what they needed to do in between the time the elevation could be done and then getting the house ready. They were told they could go ahead and rebuild and the house would be elevated once it was finished,
she said.
"So we began building, I believe is was March of 2017," she said. "The house was finished in November 2017. But we got a letter in August 2017 saying that there was no more money and that they wouldn't elevate us.”
-Article, The Goldsboro News, September 2018
To manage their uncertainty about the veracity and clarity of the information they were receiving, local government administrators tried to insulate residents from what they felt were confusing state directives. In some cases, this meant waiting to pass along information to participants until they could verify directions from the state or ensure that information from the state would not change. In other situations, it meant placing the onus on state representatives to report information that may have created unwarranted optimism about aspects of the recovery, such as the potential for additional funding streams, as one interviewee notes:
Well, a representative from the state was here and discussed that [CBDG Disaster Recovery Assistance]. Because we’re very careful about telling them about any additional funds because we don’t want to get their hopes up. Because we know a lot of times when the state tells us they’re going to do something, we never see it. So, we have to be really guarded with that information. We don’t want to be blamed for getting anybody’s hopes up and then not delivering. So we let the state bring that up, and we didn’t say anything else about it. -Interview
As such, this breakdown of trust, not only between the residents and government administrators but also between different levels of government, appears to have impeded the flow of information to those who needed it most. Further, delays in information from the state led to situations where the residents blamed their local administrators for unresponsiveness. To address this, some administrators tried to be as upfront as possible with the information that they had been given. Four of the interviews highlighted the importance of transparency as a way of protecting against the degradation of trust, reflected in this statement:
We created an entire website on our page on the Hazard mitigation grant program, feel free to look at that. All we can do just put a status update, as of August 9th, we’ve heard nothing back from the state and are still in a holding pattern. The folks [residents] that I talk to… say you guys have been great; I’m not mad at you, just generally frustrated etc... so I think that the people that we communicate with on a weekly or biweekly time frame, they understand. The distrust might not be there [between local administrators and residents], but distrust boils over to the state or federal level absolutely. -Interview
Based on the interview data, we find that confusion and miscommunication between different levels of governments has two main effects. First, it creates frustration and mistrust when residents feel they are being misled, corroding the relationship between the local administrators and their constituents. Second, if the local administrators do not trust higher levels of government to provide accurate and timely information, then they are more reticent to pass on information that they do receive. Overall, these findings suggest that conditions of uncertainty degraded trust across all levels of government, and led to conditions where, rightly or wrongly, residents had less information to act upon. This aligns with previous work in this area (see, for example: Slovic 1993; Kasperson, Golding, and Tuler 1992; Ozawa 2018). To address this, transparency about decision making at all levels and consistent communication with residents is needed to build and protect public trust (He et al. 2015).
4.3 Emotional Involvement
Despite the challenges local administrators face throughout the process, and the resulting friction with residents, local administrators appear to have prioritized the care of their constituents. This is reflected in stories of emotional involvement with, and investment in, residents throughout the process, which, in turn, interviewees believed led to greater faith in the process on the part of those residents. This emotional support was seen by many administrators as a core aspect of their job. Referring to the perceived successes of the HMGP program, one interviewee – a county administrator who started his position after Matthew struck in 2016 – highlighted, the value of connecting and supporting their residents:
With me just taking over in December [2018], just being able to contact the property owners, being able to talk to them. Some of them have expressed things that are going on with them and I just try to keep, try to keep them thinking about the positive things, that it’s almost to the finish line, we’re almost there, just trying to get them those assurances. I’m not in their position but I know it cannot be fun. -Interview
Another aspect of this emotional investment is a feeling on the part of local administrators of responsibility to, and protectiveness of, their constituents. Many local administrators argued that they had a duty to protect their citizens against the confusion and delays they believed were coming from the state and federal level. The following statement notes how this was conceptualized in one department:
If there’s anything I can tell people it’s that if we’re waiting on something, it’s not going to be waiting on me for something. We want to get the job done on behalf of our citizens. As a county government, we’re that first line of defense per se. -Interview
These findings suggest that these moments of emotional connection, accessibility, and protectiveness help to mitigate the deterioration of public trust even as the HMGP program stretched on, burdening residents and government employees alike. Through these forms of caring and investment, local administrators can help maintain the goodwill of residents, even as other features of the hierarchical process are beyond their control. This suggests that a greater emphasis within the HMGP program needs to be placed on local government’s role in emotional support during the buyout process so that resources can be put towards creating the capacity for local administrators to engage with their residents in this way.
4.4 Past and Future Storms
Because North Carolina has participated in a significant number of HMGP buyouts (North Carolina Climate Office 2019), previous and future storms are often in the minds of vulnerable residents. As a result, we examined the data to better understand how public perceptions about the HMGP recovery process are shaped by the buyout processes, and media coverage of the program, that occurred during previous storms. In this case, the most notable example was Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Further, as two major hurricanes have directly struck North Carolina since Hurricane Matthew (Hurricane Florence in 2018 and Hurricane Dorian in 2019), we theorized that the successes and failures of the Hurricane Matthew recovery program may influence perspectives on future storms. This gets to the core of our second research question: How is participation in HMGP influenced by the experiences of past programs and how might it shape future programs?
We find evidence that prior experiences with disaster recovery, whether positive or negative, can shape perceptions about the current post-disaster context. For example, those that lived through Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and could recall the speed of the associated buyout program – the second largest HMGP project at the time – expressed high baseline levels of trust in government following Hurricane Matthew. Historically, HMGP projects take an average 1.9 years to reach the approval phase (Weber and Moore 2019). In contrast, over 1,000 properties were approved for a buyout within just seven months of Hurricane Floyd (FEMA 2000; Weber and Moore 2019). Because this prior buyout program was considered to be successful, it seemed to fuel interest in participating in the Hurricane Matthew buyout program. This response is captured in this comment:
I think that a lot of it came from word of the mouth in the community or a personal history after [Hurricane] Floyd. People who were a little more leery of government were saying that we were going to come in and buy your house and make it all better... They didn’t participate after Hurricane Floyd, but that one was so successful so when this one [Hurricane Matthew’s HMGP program] came up, we had people that did want to participate because they knew it was going to be successful. -Interview
The notion that individuals draw relationships between past and future storms is further supported by the analysis of local newspaper articles. In a review of local newspaper articles referencing Hurricane Matthew and HMGP, we found that references to Hurricane Floyd were common in the initial months after Matthew made landfall (see Figure 3). Overall, a total of 76 articles mention Hurricane Floyd. After Hurricane Florence made landfall (August – September 2018), Florence recovery also became a feature of many Hurricane Matthew articles. In total, Hurricane Florence was mentioned in 85 articles over 16 months (see Figure 4).
While reflections back to Hurricane Floyd recovery support the idea that past program success can be parlayed into future program success, it is unclear that the opposite holds true. Despite the issues they identified with the Hurricane Matthew recovery process, many local administrators were not concerned that the Matthew program would negatively impact participation in a post-Florence program. In fact, they expected Florence buyouts to run smoothly because of the short time-frame between the back-to-back hurricanes. This can be attributed to increased experience and capacity of administrators, as well as increased familiarity with the program among residents, which the interviewees anticipated would transfer to a more knowledgeable, organized, and streamlined HMGP process.
In some ways, the events of Matthew and Florence mirror the learning process that took place after Hurricane Fran in 1996, which was subsequently capitalized on in the response to Hurricane Floyd in 1999 (see, for example: Fraser et al. 2003; Smith 2014). Therefore, while our evidence shows that successful recoveries increase interest in future recoveries, it does not necessarily follow that future participation will be depressed by experiences of program mismanagement and delays. Rather, back-to-back disasters and recoveries may insulate the effects of negative perceptions on public trust. This can occur in two ways: first, the short timespan between disasters almost ensures continuity of experience in most local offices, which can improve capacity and response; and two, the stress of multiple storms will increase the number of willing participants even if the residents feel uncertain about the trustworthiness of government representatives. The latter point is illustrated in this excerpt from a news article:
After Matthew, a handful of residents tried to return to their houses. They stayed away, Currie [Whiteville city manager] said, after Florence.
"There's really no one living over there now, it's basically an abandoned area of town," Currie said. "It's sort of like pictures you see from Hurricane Katrina of the Lower Ninth Ward over in New Orleans."
-Article, Tribune News Service, December 2019
However, the relationship between repeat storms and recovery participation needs further research to better understand the development and loss of trust through multiple storm events.
4.5 Limitations and Future Work
One important note about this study is that, while we did try to triangulate the interviews with the context provided by newspaper articles, the findings rely heavily on interviews with local government officials and administrators. Comments that they had about misinformation or unclear information that they received from the state or FEMA are not verified by other parties. We did not interview state or federal government stakeholders and therefore, were not able to obtain a bi-directional perspective on trust. Similarly, we did not interview residents regarding their relationships to local administrators. As such, our results largely reflect local administrator’s perceptions of the actions and feelings of other program stakeholders. This is a perspective that has been missing from research to-date, but future studies should explore the role of trust in the buyout process from the perspectives of other stakeholders. In doing so, future research will illuminate whether the dynamics noted in our results are evident throughout different levels of government involved in the process.
Additionally, our interview and newspaper article analysis found that the buyout process for Matthew may impact participation in future buyout programs since the buyout process that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricanes Floyd and Fran in the late 90’s influenced participation in the current Matthew buyout. There is support for this in the literature on the relevance of trust in bureaucratic processes (Ozawa 2018; Kasperson, Golding, and Tuler 1992; Slovic 1993) and in buyout programs, specifically, (de Vries and Fraser 2012; Kick et al. 2011), as well as studies illustrating how the deterioration of trust is associated with snags in the recovery process (Binder, Greer, and Zavar 2020). However, longitudinal studies of buyout processes are called for to examine the evolution of trust from one recovery program to the next.