@andrewrumbach
Urban & regional scientist. Co-lead of the Climate & Communities program @urbaninstitute. Research & policy analysis on disasters, disaster recovery, precarious housing, land use, and adaptation. Sourdough enthusiast. https://andrewrumbach.substack.com
Maui announces conditional selection of 7 multi-family rental projects to receive CDBG-DR funding. Will restore 519 affordable units to West Maui... www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2026/03/07/m...
On Monday the Senate is poised to pass the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a massive bi-partisan bill with important implications for federal policies on disaster recovery and housing resilience. I break down some of the key provisions here: andrewrumbach.substack.com/p/legislatio...
Visualization of the day - number of days that each secretary of DHS served since beginning of agency:
Just another day of trying to get work done like everything is normal
Kentucky is the latest state to require that local governments treat manufactured housing the same as single family in their zoning codes. There are catches, though...they must be installed on permanent foundations, for one. And the new rules do not apply to HOAs.
linknky.com/news/2026/03...
You might assume that the Small Business Administration makes disaster loans primarily to small businesses. But nearly 3 out of every 4 dollars in approved loans are for households. Just another strange fact about our 'make it make sense' federal recovery system:
SBA data is limited, but here is a visualization of counties with repeat SBA disaster loan activity in the periods that are available (FYs 2000-07 and 2019-22). Not surprisingly the counties with the most number of repeat years are in the Gulf Coast:
I wrote a small introduction to the SBA’s disaster loan programs, one of the largest sources of federal recovery funds but also less visible to researchers. It includes some new interactive data assets to explore SBA data (such as it is): open.substack.com/pub/andrewru...
Sourdough post of the week(s): pizza night.
Ahh yes the "after 26 public meetings we need to slow down and consider traffic" flavor of "I support affordable housing, just not near me" liberal www.sfgate.com/bayarea/arti...
REQUEST: I am looking to speak to an avalanche expert for a story about the Castle Peak avalanche in California's Sierra Nevada. I am located a few miles from the incident location and am hoping to get some background information about avalanche danger.
Any recommendations appreciated!
James Talarico has the juice.
Morning runs in DC
When its 10:30 am and you've already eaten the lunch you packed to work
How does the partisan voting behavior of a state relate to whether the sitting president issues a disaster declaration? Explore this question administration-by-administration, from Bush to Trump:
disasterlab.org/viz/viz_poli...
How do presidential disaster declarations under Trump and Kristi Noem compare to past administrations? Here is what the data tells us. Plus, an interactive chart for viewing approvals and denials according to states' political lean, under different admins: andrewrumbach.substack.com/p/presidenti...
The Small Business Administration's disaster loan programs are among the 3 most important sources of post-disaster funding (along with FEMA and HUD) for disaster survivors. And yet the most recent public data we have to examine the utilization of those programs is from 2023.
I spoke with Smart Cities Dive about the potential impacts of the DHS shutdown on FEMA and emergency management: www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/fema-sh...
I appreciate the feedback and engagement on the disaster declaration dashboard that I put together. I've made several important updates, including some new tools to view declaration activity according to the political leanings of the states:
andrewrumbach.substack.com/p/updates-an...
Updated now with 2024 numbers
Want to know how many disaster declarations are being made under the 2nd Trump Administration, and how long they are taking? I made a simple dashboard to help: andrewrumbach.substack.com/p/a-dashboar...
Summer camp registration is the low point of parenting
"The last 11 years have been the warmest years on record; according to an analysis by Berkeley Earth if we assume a constant rate of warming since the 1970s, the last three years have a less than 1-in-100 chance of occurring solely due to natural variability."
www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
President Trump issued disaster declarations (public assistance) for Tennessee and Mississippi after winter storms wreaked havoc there. He continued his habit of announcing the declarations on social media and describing the states' political support for him: tennesseelookout.com/2026/02/06/t...
I've created a new dashboard for The Climate Brink that is updated daily with ERA5 global mean surface temperature data. It includes daily anomalies, monthly and annual forecasts, and a bunch of interactive data visualizations: dashboard.theclimate...
Whatever it is, something tells me the Palantir theme song is playing softly in the background
Disaster declarations are one lever of power for an executive branch trying to reshape disaster governance. How is the Trump administration using the president’s unilateral authority? open.substack.com/pub/andrewru...
