Since 2017, more than 260 major disasters were declared—many of which disrupted K-12 schools and students' lives. Now, these challenges are compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. Local education officials in disaster-affected areas said the pandemic exacerbated mental health issues, delayed recovery projects, and more. Officials said student mental health was a top priority but services needed to...

This report provides additional detail on our analysis of all disaster survivors who applied for assistance from FEMA's Individuals and Households Program in 2016, 2017, and 2018. It accompanies GAO-20-503. For example, we examined assistance approval rates for the least and most vulnerable people, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Social Vulnerability Index, which assesses...

Hawaii and the U.S. Pacific-area territories had a record number of natural disasters—typhoons, earthquakes, mudslides, and volcanic eruptions—in 2018. As of May 2020, they used about 63% of the $788 million in Disaster Relief Funds obligated for the disasters. Based on initial observations, local officials believe FEMA’s disaster response was fairly effective. But contracting problems, wor...

For 3 decades, citizens of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau have been able to live and work in the U.S. indefinitely without a visa through special agreements called compacts. The number of people who migrate to the U.S. under the auspices of these compacts has grown by about 70% in the last decade, particularly on the mainland. U.S. areas reported rising costs of public education and...

On average, 17 pedestrians died each day in 2018 as a result of vehicle crashes—up 43% from 2008. Automakers offer safety features on many new cars to help protect pedestrians. For example, crash avoidance technologies use cameras or radar to detect pedestrians and warn drivers or automatically slow or stop the car. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has researched pedestrian sa...

After the Sept. 11 attacks, insurers generally stopped covering terrorism risk. Through the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, Congress sought to ensure available, affordable commercial insurance for this risk. Under this program, the government and insurers share losses. Since 2003, the share of any losses insurers would pay has increased and the federal government’s share (and related fiscal risk)...

In October 2015, a cargo ship from the United States sank at sea during a hurricane, killing all 33 crew members. Concerns with the ship’s safety plan raised questions about how the Coast Guard ensures that U.S. commercial ships comply with safety regulations. The Coast Guard relies on “recognized organizations,” third parties that the Coast Guard has authorized to perform activities such a...

Alternative schools may offer a different educational approach to serve expelled students or others whose needs typically can’t be met in a regular school. We looked at how 15 states hold alternative schools accountable for academic performance. All 15 states used at least one indicator that researchers and studies consider useful for assessing alternative schools. For example, 11 states used c...

The Federal Communications Commission uses the Electronic Comment Filing System to receive public comments about proposed regulation changes. In May 2017, a surge of more than 22 million comments disrupted the system making it unavailable. We issued a September 2019 report with 136 recommendations for improvements in this and other FCC systems. The report was not publically released because it co...

The Census Bureau began its decennial count of the U.S. population in January 2020. Early operations were generally on schedule—with field staff successfully completing address canvassing for more than 50 million addresses. Ensuring accurate addresses is vital or people may be missed, counted more than once, or included in the wrong location. But, a shortage of staff put the operation at risk o...