They usually refer to them as "survivors". Craig Fugate was adamant that victim not be used and survivor be used instead. He ran FEMA under Obama. Never heard customer used.
To me it sounds like they intend to treat the affected individuals with the service levels expected in consumer settings, to be responsive to their needs.
They taught us in nursing school to call our patients “clients”. It’s a way to dehumanize the very real people who are going through things and turn them into commodities.
Applicants is the most used term by FEMA employees along with disaster survivor. Even in the paperwork "Applicant" is the term that's used. Whomever is using the term "Customer" is just an ass. Customer would imply that people were paying FEMA for a service, which they do not.
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Survivor is the common word around FEMA…”disaster survivor assistance”, “survivor interactions”.