Gulf state officials say they are prepared for Hurricane Isaias, but the storm could be the first major test of Fema’s ability to deploy a large surge workforce after the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts and restructuring of the agency, emergency management experts say.
The Trump administration has said it wants to eliminate, or drastically downsize, Fema, putting more burden on states. More than ۴,۳۰۰ employees left the agency in fiscal year ۲۰۲۵, about ۱۷% of the workforce, according to a recent US government accountability office (GAO) report. The agency’s staffing reductions were not carried out systematically to ensure Fema could still meet its statutory obligations, said Chris Currie, director of homeland security and justice at the GAO.
“It’s not whether Fema is going to respond. They’re going to respond. It’s more about the depth,” Currie said.
One of the ways that staff was reduced at the agency was through early retirement, meaning many of those who left were more experienced people. From January ۲۰۲۵ to January ۲۰۲۶, ۵۸ senior executive service employees left Fema, according to the GAO report. In the prior three fiscal years, the agency reported about ۱۳ senior executive service separations on average per year.
Among the top officials who left the agency last year was the region four administrator, who oversees eight states, including Florida and Alabama, where Hurricane Isaias is expected to make landfall late Friday or early Saturday. Deanne Criswell, who led Fema under the Biden administration, said it was less about the number of people who left the agency and more about the loss of experience. “My biggest concerns are always the loss of institutional knowledge. You lose that knowledge. You lose the people who had been through these big disasters in the past,” she said.
In a written statement, Fema said the agency is actively monitoring and preparing for Hurricane Isaias.
“Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin’s leadership, the safety of the American people is DHS’s top priority,” the agency said. “Fema incident management assistance teams are deploying to Alabama and Florida, and Fema personnel are embedded in state emergency operations centers. Fema is also prepositioning emergency supplies at Maxwell air force base in Montgomery, Alabama, to supplement state resources if requested.”
Governors of Florida, Georgia and Alabama have declared states of emergency for counties projected to be affected by Hurricane Isaias. State emergency management personnel in Louisiana and Mississippi said they have been in regular contact with Fema and received full support from the agency earlier this year during Tropical Storm Arthur, which brought flash flooding and tornadoes across the Gulf coast.
At a news conference on Thursday, Jared Perdue, the Florida division of emergency management executive director, said the state has had very close coordination with their federal partners at Fema. But Currie warned that the agency could quickly find itself stretched thin if it has to respond to more than one natural disaster, a possibility that could become quickly consequential as El Niño strengthens and the agency heads into the fall and winter months.
“The bigger risk is how big it is and a second disaster happening and their ability to staff those,” he said. For example, In ۲۰۲۴, Hurricanes Helene and Milton made landfall in Florida less than two weeks apart. In response, Fema deployed ۱۳,۵۰۰ employees, straining staff capacity. “Fema has struggled to have the right number of people with the right qualifications, even before these cuts,” Currie said.
In June, Fema had active recovery efforts for over ۱,۰۰۰ open emergency disaster declarations. If the agency is forced to deploy personnel to multiple new disasters, as it did in ۲۰۲۴, Fema would likely have to marshal staff from these other active recovery efforts, putting those efforts on hold, Currie said. “Even though it’s been said that it’s been a quiet hurricane season, it could still be a busy disaster season,” he said.
Last month, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s plan to cut Fema staff by ۵۰% was unlawful. The administration has been slow to approve major disaster funding this year, according to an analysis by the Texas Tribune. Most major disaster declarations by Fema in ۲۰۲۶ came a month after the initial request, about three times longer than average, according to the report.
Ginny Goldman, the founder of Rebuild: the National Disaster Survivors Association, a member organization of climate disaster survivors, said those who went through the flooding in Texas Hill Country this summer still have not received FEMA individual assistance. In a Truth Social post, Donald Trump said the federal government would send $۵۰m for disaster recovery assistance.
“Where is it at? What about the folks struggling to get back on their feet?” Goldman asked. Hurricane Isaias would be the “biggest test of Fema” since the Trump administration’s staffing cuts, she said. “And it’s coming at a challenging time because there are so many other compounding factors that are making life hard for people in America.”
While Gulf state officials have not expressed concern that Fema’s staffing cuts could impact the agency’s ability to respond to Hurricane Isaias, Goldman said disaster survivors are likely to notice. “If you’re a disaster survivor that is trying to navigate a system that is already broken, versus a civil servant in a government agency that is used to navigating a broken system day-to-day, you will have a different perspective on whether it’s broken or not,” she said.
