How FEMA’s policy shift sidelines vulnerable communities during disasters

When powerful storms hit your city, which neighborhoods are most likely to flood? In many cities, they’re typically low-income areas. They may have poor drainage, or they lack protections such as seawalls.

New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, where hundreds of people died when Hurricane Katrina broke a levee in 2005, and Houston’s Kashmere Gardens, flooded by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, are just two among many examples.

With those disasters in mind, the Federal Emergency Management...