FEMA makes late push to bolster hurricane preparedness, but effort may be too little, too late, officials say

Amid growing concerns within the Federal Emergency Management Agency that internal turmoil has left it unprepared for the fast-approaching hurricane season, the agency is taking significant steps to bolster its disaster response workforce and training infrastructure. In a series of internal memos issued this week and obtained by CNN, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees the disaster relief agency, approved requests by FEMA to reopen several training facilities and lengthen contract extensions for thousands of staffers who deploy during natural disasters. This comes days after CNN reported on an internal FEMA assessment acknowledging that the agency “is not ready” to handle catastrophic storms this summer. The document outlined FEMA’s struggles in recent months, including a general uncertainty around its mission moving forward, lack of coordination and training with states and federal partners, and plummeting morale among its diminishing workforce. The Trump administration – which has vowed to “eliminate” FEMA – is in the process of overhauling the agency’s operations and drastically shrinking its workforce as it shifts far more responsibility for disaster response and recovery onto the states. With these new memos, the Trump administration is taking steps to shore up disaster preparations. But multiple FEMA officials tell CNN it could be too little, too late with the official start of hurricane season less than two weeks away. “It will help stop the bleed, but I also feel the damage is done for this season,” a FEMA official said, speaking to CNN anonymously out of fear of professional reprisals. CNN reached out to FEMA and DHS about the memos. As part of the administration’s last-minute push, FEMA is restarting training courses at the Center for Domestic Preparedness, National Disaster & Emergency Management University, and National Fire Academy – three of its training centers – after a months-long pause due to funding cuts and program reviews by the Department of Government Efficiency. Those programs train federal and state emergency managers and first responders to prepare for natural disasters, including hurricanes and wildfires. The internal assessment obtained by CNN last week found that most hurricane preparations have “been derailed this year due to other activities like staffing and contracts.” As a result, trainings have largely been frozen and critical exercises and collaborations have not happened between FEMA and its state partners, whom the Trump administration expects to take the lead on future disasters. Roughly 10% of FEMA’s total staff have left since January, including a large swath of its senior leadership, and the agency is projected to lose close to 30% of its workforce by the end of the year, shrinking FEMA from about 26,000 workers to roughly 18,000, according to a FEMA official briefed on the numbers. CNN previously reported that at Noem’s direction, thousands of FEMA staffers that serve in public-facing roles during disaster response, many of whom work on 2- to 4-year contracts, must be individually approved for extension by her office. But according to the new memos, most of those staffers will now be renewed for 180 days at a time, instead of the 30-day extensions they’ve been receiving in recent weeks, which had raised concerns that more positions could be cut in the middle of hurricane season. These changes offer a semblance of stability to FEMA’s staff amid growing uncertainty about the agency’s deployment plans and capabilities this summer. But during a call last week, FEMA’s new acting chief, David Richardson, told the agency that additional steep staffing cuts are still expected in the months ahead. “This doesn’t address the brain drain, external hiring freeze, the culture of fear being stoked that is pushing folks out, and the fact that the federal agencies we coordinate with are also being gutted,” a second FEMA official told CNN, calling these changes “too little and not reassuring.” When Richardson took the helm less than two weeks ago, he announced an agency-wide “complex problem-solving session” to assess how prepared FEMA is to handle natural disasters like hurricanes, wildfires and tornadoes in the months ahead. In a recent interview with a conservative radio channel, Richardson stressed that the agency will be well-prepared for hurricane season, adding that he believes there is no uncertainty at FEMA about its mission. “We’re already putting together teams that are going down range to do some evaluation on what readiness has been done at the state level,” Richardson said. “So, we will be ready, we will meet the president’s intent, and we will make sure that the American people are safe. We may do it a little differently. We will be criticized for it. But we will do it very, very effectively.” Meanwhile, federal and state emergency managers are worried about dire consequences for communities ill-equipped to handle disasters without federal support. At a hearing on Capitol Hill last week, Noem told lawmakers “there is no formalized, final plan” for restructuring the agency and shifting responsibilities to states. In a memo issued Wednesday and obtained by CNN, Richardson officially rescinded FEMA’s 2022-2026 strategic plan, saying it “contains goals and objectives that bear no connection to FEMA accomplishing its mission.” The memo states that a new 2026-2030 strategy will be developed this summer, though it does not mention a plan for the months ahead. President Trump has created a FEMA review council, which met for the first time Tuesday and is expected to submit recommendations to further reform the agency. During the meeting, Noem reiterated the goal of dismantling and even renaming FEMA. “I don’t want you to go into this thinking that we’re going to make a little tweak here, a little delegation of authority over here, that we’re going to maybe cut a few dollars somewhere. No, FEMA should no longer exist as it is. (President Trump) wants this to be a new agency,” Noem told the council. “Our goal is that states should manage their emergencies, and we come in and support them, and we’re there in a time of financial crisis.”