fema's performance in hurricane season in question

The question hanging over the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) “Is FEMA prepared to respond to a major hurricane after all the loss of people, leaders and institutional knowledge?”

This is the subject of this article, FEMA staff losses leave questions about hurricane season

Here is my assessment of that question:

If there is only one hurricane occurring and it is not a catastrophic one, FEMA should be able to perform to the general public’s expectations. You can be sure the leadership at FEMA will have a full court press to move resources and be responsive to states.

There will undoubtedly be glitches in the response. There always are. Likely those will be caused by a combination of a lack of experience in responding and the hundreds of years of institutional knowledge that has walked out of the door at FEMA.

The larger question will be the challenge of multiple hurricanes happening in sequence like we saw happen in 2017. If that scenario is repeated, FEMA will be back on its heals immediately and the cuts that have been made will be self-evident.

The impacts of the FEMA Review Council will take months to see which aspects of their recommendations actually materialize. The end goal of shifting more of the responsibility to states for disaster response may happen organically when FEMA does not have the resources to respond.

If you don’t know anyone who left FEMA and what that impact means, check out this Disaster Zone Podcast: Legal Issues in Disaster Response and Recovery  My guest there is an example of the level of talent and knowledge that has departed FEMA and will not be easy to replace.