FEMA Isn’t Ready for Disaster Season, Workers Say

Less than two months before the official start of hurricane season, the nation’s primary disaster-response agency faces an uncertain future. Employees working across the Federal Emergency Management Agency tell WIRED that a rapid erosion of tools, external partnerships, and practices—as well as the looming threat of staffing cuts and the exodus of senior staff—is bad news for the country as it heads into the summer, even if the agency reaches the season somewhat intact. FEMA staffers who spoke to WIRED were granted anonymity because they aren’t permitted to speak to the press. The agency hasn’t seen “huge sweeping changes yet, but it doesn’t take much to completely screw a [disaster] response up,” one employee says. “We are being set up for a really, really bad situation.” FEMA was established in 1979 as an independent agency by an executive order signed by President Jimmy Carter; after 9/11, it was moved under the Department of Homeland Security. In recent years, expensive disasters ... Read full article.