A whistleblower at the Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that disaster aid could be “severed” amid a wave of firings under President Donald Trump.
The employee, a military veteran who now manages a team at FEMA, told HuffPost the agency has been crippled after more than 200 employees were fired over the past few weeks. The whistleblower has requested anonymity over fears of retaliation.
“Morale is really low,” the employee said. “It’s dismal. When you’re talking to people, they don’t know what to do. There’s mass confusion.”
That mass confusion began last week when the Department of Homeland Security announced it had fired more than 200 probationary employees at FEMA. The firings are part of a larger gutting of the nation’s workforce being overseen by unelected billionaire Elon Musk, who has vowed to strip the federal government of its power and much of its workforce as he heads up the new, so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Along with the firings, the Trump administration has sought to freeze FEMA funds. And last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would be creating a council to review FEMA, citing without evidence what it called “political bias” within the agency.
Further complicating matters was an email sent on Saturday to more than 2 million federal workers at Musk’s behest demanding that employees list what they accomplished in the past week or face termination.
All of this is culminating in a potential disaster for the agency tasked with managing disasters, the FEMA worker told HuffPost. When Hurricane Helene slammed North Carolina last year, more than 900 FEMA employees were deployed to help coordinate aid as flooding ravaged the state. That level of response could be seriously hampered at an agency that the Government Accountability Office found to have a 35% gap in staffing in 2022.
“As we strip down our reservist support and probationary individuals, you’re going to see a decrease in support to disaster areas, especially when it comes into hurricane season,” the FEMA employee said. “You’re also going to see a decrease in the way that we work with our interagency partners in the post-disaster reconstruction effort.”
Critical work that includes getting power back on, removing debris and assessing infrastructure damage could all be hampered by the shakeup.
“Those lines of effort can be severed or slowed if you don’t have the right people in place, or if you’re reducing your force, you just won’t have that level of coordination anymore,” the source said. “But I think the most important thing is that individual assistance — the boots on the ground, those individuals getting there, knocking on doors and talking to people, you’re going to see a significant reduction in that.”
“It’s clear that they don’t understand what each agency does or why they do it.”
– FEMA employee who spoke to HuffPost
While the FEMA worker acknowledges there’s room for improvement within the agency, they described the current DOGE strategy as “swinging bats to see what we can hit.”
“It’s clear that they don’t understand what each agency does or why they do it,” the employee said. “It’s almost like a vendetta: ‘I don’t like this place, so I’m going to gut it.’ It’s just so infuriating.”
In a Feb. 16 memo, FEMA acting Administrator Cameron Hamilton warned staff about speaking to the press without approval.
“In addition, I remind you that it remains FEMA policy that disclosure of confidential, deliberative, pre-decisional agency information, or making statements that could significantly harm FEMA’s mission delivery, is prohibited,” the memo, obtained by HuffPost, says in part.
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That memo hasn’t stopped the whistleblower and veteran from coming forward. The worker told HuffPost they want people to know that FEMA is made up of dedicated civil servants who take pride in their work.
“In the military, you’re serving something larger than yourself,” the employee said. “And as I transitioned into civil service, I continued that mission. Serving something more than yourself is what a civil servant does.”
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