ICYMI: E&E News: GAO: FEMA Faces ‘Critically Low Staffing’ After Trump Cuts
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Washington, DC – As the Senate prepares to vote this week on Trump’s nominee for FEMA Administrator, Cameron Hamilton, a new Government Accountability Office report found that Trump’s cuts have put the agency at risk of having “critically low staffing levels” to handle a major disaster. Since Trump took office, he has gutted FEMA and dismantled disaster mitigation and response—threatening critical aid and leaving communities more vulnerable to extreme weather events.
ICYMI: E&E News: GAO: FEMA faces ‘critically low staffing’ after Trump cuts
President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze last year and other steps have left the nation’s disaster agency at risk of “having critically low staffing levels” to handle a major disaster, a government report Tuesday says.
The Government Accountability Office’sscathing analysis of the Federal Emergency Management Agency quotes unnamed FEMA officials saying they were “wandering around in the dark” as they awaited administration direction on staffing.
“Officials told us they have been operating in uncertainty and confusion while still trying to meet the mission with the staff they have,” the nonpartisan GAO found.
The report confirms fears that FEMA lacks the personnel to handle a catastrophe such as the two simultaneous hurricanes that devastated the Southeast in 2024.
Trump made a campaign issue of FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene in October 2024 and assailed the agency on a visit to a damaged area in North Carolina days after taking office.
After losing thousands of employees under Trump, “FEMA is facing similar or greater risk of disaster workforce capacity and competency limitations than the agency faced in 2024 following Hurricanes Helene and Milton,” the GAO said…
The watchdog highlighted several damaging moves by Trump — a hiring freeze, employee buyouts, firing probationary employees and not renewing contracts of some temporary FEMA workers.
FEMA officials told GAO that the departures “resulted in a loss of institutional knowledge and experienced personnel” and worsened the agency’s years-long struggle to have adequate staffing…