Emergency Managers Regroup as FEMA Pulls Back Support

The “above normal” hurricane season meteorologists predicted in May hasn’t materialized yet, but experts see signs that's about to change. The number of named storms this year is higher than average, and August is when activity begins to increase.

This hurricane season, concerns are heightened by still-unfolding changes in the federal government disaster infrastructure. For months, President Donald Trump’s administration has been considering how to reduce the federal government’s role in disaster relief. The president publicly said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could be eliminated as soon as December this year, before backtracking after the deadly flash floods in Texas. Trump has also said he would immediately “give out less money” to states, and has already denied some requests for aid. He’s also made staffing cuts at the agency.

This is an urgent concern in Florida; 4 in 10 of all recorded hurricanes have made landfall there. “Our whole country is in the same boat,” says Erin Minor, a vice president at the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, a public charity. “From disaster to disaster, it seems like we don't know what the federal response is going to be.”

The picture may not be in focus yet, but emergency managers already assume they will have to plug gaps left by coming changes, says Robert Ezelle, president of the National Emergency Managers Association.

Political Climate Change

A fuller picture of the president’s plans for FEMA is expected in November, when a review council will provide recommendations for reform of the federal agency.

Significant changes have already occurred, however. In June, Reuters reported that about 2,000 FEMA employees had been laid off or left their jobs since the beginning of the Trump administration, about a third of its staff. Loss of staff has real impacts: Though it’s a touchy subject in the face of the devastation and loss of life in the Texas Hill Country, there is evidence that personnel changes and new rules designed to control costs interfered with communications and deployment of search and rescue teams.

Earlier this year FEMA announced it was freezing $10 billion in funding for nonprofits that provide disaster response services while it reviewed whether these funds might benefit undocumented immigrants. The outcome of this review is not known. The agency has also terminated a program that provides grants for disaster mitigation.

FEMA funds flow based on declarations by the president, and another possibility on the minds of emergency managers is that politics could get in the way. Public officials in California worry that tense relations between their governor and the White House could affect access to long-term support in the aftermath of historic wildfires, assistance they expect to need over years, if not decades.

Responders Respond

Historically, FEMA has covered up to 90 percent of recovery costs. The Urban Institute’s Sara McTarnaghan has been modeling the capacity of states to shoulder more of them. In a recently published analysis based on the most recent available data (from 2019), she found that only five of the 31 states that received assistance had enough money set aside to cover disaster costs.

States would be smart to broaden their thinking about collaboration, McTarnaghan says. Private-sector partnerships are one possible resource. Tighter relationships between states whose hazard seasons occur at different times can also expand response ecosystems. The Emergency Management Assistance Compact, for example, provides for mutual assistance between states potentially facing disasters, including things like sharing technical knowledge and surge staff capacity.

Long-term responses can include more attention to embedding mitigation in land-use planning and housing development. State power over insurance regulation can play a role in the availability and affordability of adequate coverage.

States should also prepare for funding and personnel gaps as a result of losing FEMA's support, including by making a detailed accounting of what positions they may need to replace and how they might pay for them, says Erica Bornemann, a former director of Vermont’s emergency management division now consulting state and local governments across the country.

State and local governments rely on assistance from nonprofit organizations when disasters strike. Minor, of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, notes that nonprofits in the Gulf Coast region are weaving resilience plans for their organizations into funding requests, including business plans that encompass continuity of operations if disaster strikes.

Her foundation also works with local businesses to encourage this kind of thinking. Keeping the local economy functioning is essential after a storm strikes, and it’s now an accepted reality in the region that storm damage is more likely than ever.

Warmer oceans mean Atlantic hurricanes will be stronger. UCLA climate researcher Daniel Swain notes that the ocean is slightly cooler this year — but only compared to 2024. “It’s hotter than any other year in observational history,” he says. The underlying conditions that made last year’s hurricane season one of the most destructive and costly in decades still exist.

Swain is also concerned about the chances of a very active wildfire season, which is already taking a toll in Canada.

“My only recommendation to folks is don't wait for something to happen to your community to come together and prepare,” Minor says. “I would say to government, to the business community, to nonprofits, do the work now.”