September is National Preparedness Month, a reminder for everyone to be prepared for emergencies and disasters so they can keep themselves, their families, and their communities safe. This year, Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (TX-7) is co-chairing National Preparedness Month, with a special focus on ensuring the AAPI community is prepared for disasters.

Rep. Fletcher announced the theme for National Preparedness Month: “This year, FEMA is focusing on empowering the AAPI community by removing barriers to disaster preparedness in our communities. Being prepared for disasters makes a huge difference in keeping our families and loved ones safe,” she said. As co-chair, she will work with FEMA to help AAPI communities better prepare for National Preparedness Month and use community preparedness resources to become more resilient.

Rep. Fletcher has been an advocate for improving disaster preparedness and response since her first term in Congress. She first introduced the Hazard Eligibility and Local Projects (HELP) Act (HR1917), a bipartisan bill that eliminated unnecessary bureaucratic delays by allowing certain eligible disaster mitigation projects to begin without risking losing potential federal funding, and became law in 2023.

She also introduced the Bipartisan Disaster Recovery Funding Act of 2019 (HR 2761), which provided federal recovery funds to Texas to help mitigate the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey. In 2023, she co-founded the Bipartisan Flood Resilience Caucus, and in 2024, completed the Buffalo Bayou and tributary resilience study to protect communities from future storms.

Meanwhile, the paper thanked Rep. Fletcher for her continued and passionate efforts to prepare for disasters and his special attention to the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, noting that “underserved immigrant communities, such as Houston’s Korean community, will continue to be left behind in disasters if equity in language support is not prioritized.” We also asked for help in establishing institutional systems to provide equitable language support to the AAPI community, rather than simply evaluating them based on population, as Google Translate, which is provided on each government website, is not sufficient to respond to emergencies.