How Trump Is Changing FEMA as Hurricane Season Begins

Atlantic Hurricane season officially began this week and it comes at an uneasy time for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Last month, the head of FEMA was dismissed, and several senior officials have left. This has come after threats from the Trump administration to dismantle the agency and cuts across multiple federal agencies that are key to storm prediction and response. FEMA has lost about a quarter of its full-time staff in recent months.

As several of my colleagues reported, all of that has left cities and states uncertain about how much federal support they’ll have when a disaster or storm strikes.

The Trump administration has argued that states should bear more responsibility for disaster recovery. For years, emergency managers across the political spectrum have agreed that states could do more before calling for federal help. In 2017, the FEMA director floated a “disaster deductible,” which would have required states to commit to spending a certain amount of their own money.

I spoke to former FEMA officials to understand some of the worries about the agency. Some of them said the administration’s actions leading up to this year’s hurricane season had wasted crucial planning time, left states without time to prepare and had potentially put people in danger.

The changes have pushed some high-level officials to leave the agency.

“Everyone has a line, and I have reached mine,” said MaryAnn Tierney, who until last month was the second-in-command at FEMA, in a recent message to agency staff that was shared with The New York Times.

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