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The Shocking Monday Morning Briefing
Picture this: you’re sitting in on a Monday morning all-hands meeting for America’s top disaster response agency, and the person in charge just told you he didn’t know the United States has a hurricane season. Staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were left baffled on Monday after the head of the U.S. disaster agency said he had not been aware the country has a hurricane season, according to four sources familiar with the situation. The remark was made during a briefing by David Richardson, who has led FEMA since early May. It was not clear to staff whether he meant it literally, as a joke, or in some other context. During the call, Richardson said he was unaware of hurricane season. According to sources cited by Reuters, the tone left staff unsure if he was joking. That awkward silence you can imagine in the room? Yeah, it was probably deafening. The timing couldn’t have been worse either – Richardson’s comments came the day after the season officially began.
Meet David Richardson: The Man with No Disaster Experience
David Richardson, a former Marine Corps officer who served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa, was named acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Thursday just after Cameron Hamilton, who’d been leading the agency, also in an acting role, was fired. Having spent most of the last decade as a government contractor in Northern Virginia, Richardson was previously appointed by the Trump administration as assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office. Richardson has no apparent experience with FEMA, emergency management, or disaster relief. His two-decade military career included deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa, and he was awarded for valor in combat. He has also taught history and strategy at George Washington University and the U.S. Army Field Artillery School, and is the author of the novel War Story. It’s like hiring a chef to run a hospital – impressive resume, wrong specialty.
Hurricane Season by the Numbers
The U.S. hurricane season runs from June through November. NOAA has predicted up to 10 hurricanes this year, some potentially severe. There were 90 declarations of “major disasters” in 2024, making it one of the worst years for disasters declarations in the last three decades. Ninety major disaster declarations in a year is nearly double the annual average of 55 declarations. It translates to a major disaster declaration every four days. FEMA responded to more than 100 declared disasters in 2024, including back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton that battered Florida and Georgia. Of the 403 billion-dollar weather disasters since 1980, tropical cyclones (or hurricanes) have caused the most damage: over $1.5 trillion total, with an average cost of $23 billion per event. They are also responsible for the highest number of deaths: 7,211 since 1980. These aren’t just statistics – they represent real people’s lives and communities.
FEMA’s Workforce Crisis Under Trump
About 2,000 full-time FEMA staff, one-third of its total, have been terminated or voluntarily left the agency since the start of the Trump administration in January. Roughly 10% of FEMA’s total staff have left since January, including a large swath of its senior leadership, and the agency is projected to lose close to 30% of its workforce by the end of the year, shrinking FEMA from about 26,000 workers to roughly 18,000. Some 2,000 FEMA employees have accepted incentives to leave or were terminated since the start of the Trump administration, shrinking its full-time staff by about one third, according to Michael Coen, former FEMA chief of staff. Coen predicted Richardson’s address would further demoralize the staff. “I think it’s going to lead to more departures from the agency, which is just going to further decrease FEMA’s capability for whenever the next catastrophic event happens.” It’s like having a fire department lose half its firefighters right before wildfire season.
The Hurricane Preparation
Richardson told staff there would be no changes to FEMA’s response plans, contradicting his pledge to unveil a new disaster strategy by May 23. He cited concerns about conflicting with the Trump-established FEMA Review Council. Richardson said during the briefing that there would be no changes to the agency’s disaster response plans despite having told staff to expect a new plan in May, the sources told Reuters. Richardson’s comments come amid widespread concern that the departures of a raft of top FEMA officials, staff cuts and reductions in hurricane preparations will leave the agency ill-prepared for a storm season forecast to be above normal. FEMA has scaled back hurricane training and workshops due to travel restrictions and internal shakeups. The agency’s ability to support state and local emergency efforts has been questioned. FEMA recently sharply reduced hurricane training and workshops for state and local emergency managers due to travel and speaking restrictions imposed on staff. When your house is about to flood, you don’t cancel the sandbag delivery.
