In a troubling development for America’s emergency preparedness, FEMA is experiencing an unprecedented exodus of leadership and staff just weeks away from the 2025 Danger Season1. Over a dozen senior leaders – including those with the most disaster recovery experience – have either resigned or been fired, according to recent reports.
The leadership drain comes on top of approximately 1,000 job cuts and resignations from the agency’s more than 20,000-person workforce. These departures create a significant void at an agency already stretched thin as it responds to ongoing recovery efforts from devastating storms and wildfires in North Carolina and Los Angeles.
“The indiscriminate mass firing of essential FEMA staff will cause endless disruption to an agency that was already inarguably understaffed and overstretched … [and] will have longstanding consequences for the people that experience disaster at their doorstep,” warned Shana Udvardy, senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The last thing we need is to hollow out an agency responsible for helping to save lives and rebuild after disasters.”
Sources familiar with the situation reported to The New York Times that more than 800 FEMA employees are leaving under the Trump Administration’s “deferred-resignation offer.” Key departures include the agency’s top lawyer and deputy, along with senior officials overseeing human resources, information technology, and disaster risk reduction programs.
The administration also fired the agency’s chief financial officer and a senior official responsible for the federal flood insurance program, plus more than 200 probationary employees. Reports indicate additional cuts targeting staff working on climate change and equity issues are forthcoming as well.
President Trump has openly questioned FEMA’s future. During his first week back in office, he suggested states should handle disasters independently and established a council led by Defense and Homeland Security secretaries to evaluate the agency’s role. “I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away,” Trump stated, though it remains unclear whether this council has convened.
1 Danger Season: roughly May through October in the Northern Hemisphere when U.S. climate change impacts are at their peak and increasingly likely to collide with one another.