New Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) acting director David Richardson is in a pickle for several reasons. First, he comes to the job with zero emergency management experience, although being an underqualified department head in the Trump administration is now the norm and not the exception.
Second, through DOGE cuts, the agency has lost 2,000 full-time staff members since January. Those layoffs constitute one-quarter of the agencies’ total workforce. This includes many senior, experienced FEMA executives who quit after the administration’s actions to gut the agency. Third, as hurricane season arrived, Richardson apparently changed the FEMA plan to respond to the upcoming storms this year.
A new plan was scrapped, and Richardson informed agency staff that FEMA would respond to the 2025 hurricane season in the same manner as it did to last season’s storms. This left many in the agency and other emergency management experts shaking their heads. How could they roll back the 2024 plan when FEMA staff has been cut so significantly? And his verbal gaffe at the meeting, which I will address in a moment, was just another embarrassing chapter in the world of Trump.
FEMA’s New Boss
As with many of Trump’s appointees, Richardson comes to FEMA from the military. Perhaps this makes the president more at ease, given his five deferments during the Vietnam War. Richardson served two decades in the United States Marine Corps as a ground combat officer. He served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa, where he commanded artillery units. He was awarded for valor during his combat operations.
Mr. Richardson taught history at George Washington University, strategy at the U.S. Army Field Artillery School, and Marine Corps Martial Arts. He earned a B.S. in biology from Harding University. This is an impressive military background but one that is lacking experience in both emergency and upper-level management.
He succeeds Cameron Hamilton, who was fired in early May, one day after testifying before Congress that FEMA was vital to communities “in their greatest times of need” and should not be eliminated. This did not mesh with Trump’s stated goal of eliminating the agency and returning all of its duties to the states.
Agency in Turmoil
On his first full day as acting administrator at FEMA, Mr. Richardson told agency staff that if any of them tried to obstruct his agenda, “I will run right over you.” Shortly thereafter, the agency announced the departure of 16 senior executives, including MaryAnn Tierney, a 26-year emergency management veteran who, until May 9, had been the agency’s acting No. 2. These departures, along with the previously mentioned staff eliminations leave FEMA woefully unprepared as hurricane season has now arrived.
In the meantime, they are borrowing staff from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to get them through the crisis. However, the DHS employees appear to have limited experience managing natural disasters, according to their bios included in the announcement about the shift in staff.
And many will be splitting their time between their duties at DHS and their new responsibilities at FEMA. And with the more than $100 billion of previously awarded grant money frozen at the agency this year, states are having to wait an inordinate amount of time before they receive their disaster relief funds.
Hurricane, What Hurricane?
And in a moment of sheer embarrassment, Richardson made his worst guffaw yet. Meeting with FEMA staff on Monday, according to two people who were in attendance, Richardson told the gathering that he did not know the United States has a hurricane season. Of course, shortly thereafter, the Trump administration circled the wagons and claimed that Richardson was just kidding when he made the remark. However, the two people who relayed the information about the comment were unsure if he was kidding.
All humor aside, the United States enters its worst weather-related period short of staff, lacking proper leadership, and under the supervision of a president who doesn’t believe it should exist. What could go wrong?
