Nearly 200 current and former staffers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) warned on Monday that recent changes the Trump Administration has made to the agency could lead to “not only another national catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina, but the effective dissolution of FEMA itself and the abandonment of the American people.”
In a letter to government officials and members of Congress, the staffers said that Hurricane Katrina—which made landfall along the Gulf Coast in 2005, killed nearly 2,000 people, and left millions homeless—“was not just a natural disaster, but a man-made one” because of “the inexperience of senior leaders and the profound failure by the federal government to deliver timely, unified, and effective aid to those in need.” The widely criticized preparation and response for the storm prompted Congress to pass safeguards to prevent similar failings in the future, the letter noted. But it said that, since January, FEMA has been operating under unqualified leaders who have made decisions that “erode the capacity of FEMA.”
Thirty-five staffers signed the letter with their names; 146 others signed it anonymously, citing “the culture of fear and suppression cultivated by this administration.”
“We the undersigned—current and former FEMA workers—have come together to sound the alarm to our administrators, the US Congress, and the American people so that we can continue to lawfully uphold our individual oaths of office and serve our country as our mission dictates,” the letter said.
The staffers outlined six actions the Trump Administration has taken that they disagree with, including “the ongoing failure to appoint a qualified FEMA administrator, as required by law.”
President Donald Trump was sharply critical of FEMA over its response to Hurricane Helene in the leadup to the 2024 election, and has suggested that the agency be dissolved entirely. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, also said earlier this year that FEMA should be eliminated, though she later said that the Administration is “reorienting” the agency.
In May, the acting head of FEMA, Cameron Hamilton, was pushed out of the role just weeks before the onset of the Atlantic hurricane season, and a day after he told members of Congress that the agency was essential to communities “in their greatest times of need.”
He was replaced by David Richardson, then the assistant secretary at the Homeland Security Department’s office for countering weapons of mass destruction. Some FEMA employees voiced their concerns at the time that Richardson didn’t have the necessary experience in emergency management. In June, the New York Times reported that Richardson told staffers that he wasn’t aware that the U.S. has a hurricane season, citing two people who heard the conversation. The staffers told the Times that it wasn’t obvious if Richardson was serious, but the Department of Homeland Security said he had been joking.
In their Monday letter, FEMA employees said they opposed the elimination of critical risk reduction programs and the reduction of the agency’s disaster workforce, among other actions. FEMA has lost one-third of its full-time staff so far this year, according to the letter.
The staffers argued that many of the issues they were raising impeded their ability to respond to deadly flash floods in central Texas in July.
“We find ourselves—on the 20th anniversary of a disaster that reshaped the nature of emergency management—only two months removed from a mass casualty flooding event in Kerrville, Texas, which proved the inefficiencies, ineffectiveness, and dangers of the processes and decisions put forth by the current administration,” the letter said. “As that disaster unfolded, FEMA’s mission to provide critical support was obstructed by leadership who not only question the agency’s existence but place uninformed cost-cutting above serving the American people and the communities our oath compels us to serve.”
The staffers urged members of Congress to take several steps to address their concerns, including establishing FEMA as a Cabinet-level independent agency, defending FEMA from “further interference” from the Department of Homeland Security, and protecting FEMA employees “from politically motivated firings.”
They also said that they stood in solidarity with their colleagues at other agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). More than 750 current and former employees at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH, and CDC sent a letter to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last week, calling on him to “stop spreading inaccurate health information” in the wake of a shooting at CDC headquarters on Aug. 8.
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