By Leah Douglas
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Recent staff losses at the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, including the departure of two dozen senior leaders, could compromise the agency’s ability to respond to natural disasters this year, according to a report by a government watchdog agency.
Disaster experts and FEMA employees have warned that understaffing, inexperienced leadership and a prolonged hiring freeze could hobble this year’s hurricane and wildfire response. President Donald Trump has said he plans to wind down FEMA and shift the responsibility for disaster response to states after this hurricane season, which lasts through November. He has criticized FEMA for being inefficient and overly bureaucratic.
Roughly 2,500 staff left FEMA between January 25 and June 1, including 24 top career officials, said the Government Accountability Office report dated September 2 and seen by Reuters on Wednesday. About half of those staff, and 20 of the career officials, left as part of the Trump administration’s voluntary incentive programs meant to slim the federal workforce, the report said.
FEMA officials told the GAO that the agency is facing “significant skills gaps in its leadership cadre” and that staff losses could reduce its capacity to adequately train its workforce, the report said.
FEMA officials also told the GAO they anticipate deploying fewer volunteers from other federal agencies to support with disaster response due to widespread federal workforce reductions. In 2024, FEMA deployed almost 1,300 federal volunteers during the response to hurricanes Milton and Helene, but officials anticipate only having the capacity for 600 such volunteers this hurricane season, the report said.
“Should the U.S. experience a similarly catastrophic peak hurricane season in September and October 2025, as it did in 2024, meeting response needs could be a major challenge,” the report said.
FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The staffing and resource gaps are damning and could cost lives,” said Democratic Senator Andy Kim, who had requested that GAO assess FEMA’s hurricane season readiness, in a statement on Wednesday.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also anticipates some impact to its disaster response capacity from a roughly 10% workforce reduction, the report said.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)