FEMA’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year

As 2025 draws to a close, the departure of embattled Federal Emergency Management Agency Acting Director David Richardson caps a tumultuous year for FEMA. In January, President Donald Trump took office and promised to abolish the department. Although the administration later slowed down this proposal, its government-wide staff reductions have led to a nearly 10 percent reduction in FEMA’s workforce since January. She now faces a highly anticipated report released by a review board, commissioned by President and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, just as a new acting FEMA chief prepares to take the reins in December.

Although some expected the review board to recommend further cuts or attempt to follow through on the president’s suggestion to disband FEMA altogether, a leaked draft of the report obtained by The New York Times recommends preserving the agency. “Emergency management reform has been needed for some time,” said Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, a professor at the Columbia Climate School and director of its National Center for Disaster Preparedness. “But the wrecking balls came before there was a plan for what to do.”

The Trump administration’s first choice to lead FEMA, Cameron Hamilton, was fired after telling Congress that the agency should not be abolished. Richardson was chosen to replace him, despite a lack of experience in emergency management; he reportedly told staff members that he was unaware the United States was experiencing a hurricane season, although he later pretended to be joking.

“There has been a lot of distrust of expertise within this administration,” Schlegelmilch said, when asked why Richardson was chosen as FEMA administrator.

Richardson’s first test in the national spotlight came in early July, when devastating flooding hit Central Texas, killing 135 people. A month earlier, Noem had instituted a new rule requiring her personal approval for any FEMA spending over $100,000. That meant that, to get help to the region, FEMA officials needed Richardson to get approval from Noem. But according to the Washington Post, Richardson had made a habit of not checking his phone outside of traditional work hours. So it was difficult to contact him when the flooding hit over the July 4 holiday weekend. As a result, it took Noem more than three days to approve expenses for the whitewater rescue teams. It was also later reported that nearly two-thirds of calls to FEMA’s emergency hotline went unanswered during the flooding because a critical call center was severely understaffed.

A final recommendation on FEMA’s suggested reforms will come by the end of the year, but a leaked draft report supports keeping the agency and restoring it to a cabinet-level agency that reports directly to the president, rather than the Department of Homeland Security, where it has been housed since 2003. According to Schlegelmilch, this is a long-standing goal pursued by emergency management experts because it would give the department more autonomy, reduce paperwork and would hopefully improve the speed and efficiency of disaster response in general. A bipartisan bill called the FEMA Act of 2025, which would elevate the department to a cabinet-level agency, was introduced in Congress in July but is stuck in committee.

How the administration will receive the task force’s final report is uncertain, but new acting FEMA Director Karen Evans may not bring much stability to the agency. Although Evans has some experience in emergency management, much of it is in cybersecurity rather than disaster response, and the Trump administration’s disinterest in appointing a permanent director could portend a bleak future for the agency’s long-term future.

“This is the third acting FEMA administrator in a year,” said Shana Udvardy, senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “What the Trump administration is doing is circumventing the Senate confirmation process for a FEMA administrator, someone we desperately need, given how turbulent it has been over the past year.”