Experts call Hurricane Isaias a test for FEMA after cuts — The Guardian

In the United States, emergency management experts believe that Hurricane Isaias could become the first major test for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after staff cuts and the agency’s restructuring. The governors of Florida, Georgia and Alabama declared states of emergency in counties that the storm is forecast to affect. As The Guardian reports, the hurricane is expected in Florida and Alabama late on Friday or early on Saturday.

FEMA staff cuts

According to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), more than 4,300 employees left FEMA in fiscal year 2025 — about 17% of its staff. Chris Currie, director of GAO’s Homeland Security and Justice team, said the cuts were not carried out systematically to ensure the agency could fulfill its statutory duties.

Some employees left the agency through early retirement, meaning it lost experienced specialists. From January 2025 to January 2026, 58 members of the Senior Executive Service left FEMA. Over the previous three fiscal years, the average was about 13 such departures per year.

Former FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell stressed that a particular problem is the loss of institutional knowledge held by people who had already worked during major disasters. Among the officials who left the agency last year was the administrator of FEMA Region 4, responsible for eight states, including Florida and Alabama.

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Preparing for the storm

FEMA said it is deploying incident management assistance teams to Alabama and Florida and has also placed personnel at state emergency operations centers. The agency is also pre-positioning supplies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, to supplement state resources if necessary.

Florida emergency management chief Jared Perdue said the state is coordinating closely with FEMA’s federal partners. At the same time, Currie warned that the agency’s resources could quickly prove insufficient if it has to respond to several disasters simultaneously. In 2024, when Hurricanes Helene and Milton made landfall in Florida less than two weeks apart, FEMA deployed 13,500 employees.

In June, FEMA was managing recovery efforts under more than 1,000 open emergency declarations. A federal court last month ruled unlawful the administration of President Donald Trump’s plan to cut FEMA’s staff by 50%.