SWANNANOA, North Carolina, Jan 24 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Friday to sign an executive order to overhaul or eliminate the main federal agency that responds to natural disasters, saying he preferred that states be given federal money to handle disasters themselves.

 

Trump, on his first trip since reclaiming the presidency on Monday, accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of bungling emergency relief efforts in North Carolina, which was devastated by flooding from Hurricane Helene in September.

"FEMA has turned out to be a disaster," he said during a tour of a neighborhood destroyed by Helene where trees were downed and homes had boarded-up windows. "I think we recommend that FEMA go away." ..

Rob Verchick, a former Obama administration official at the Environmental Protection Agency and now a professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, said eliminating FEMA most likely requires Congressional action.

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