Even Before Noem Threw Sand In The FEMA Gearbox, Local Emergency Agencies Were "Stuggling To Fulfill Basic Functions"

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Even before Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem began to slow or stop federal funding for emergency management, many smaller agencies at the state level and below were already struggling to fulfill core functions, the survey shows. The failure of local officials in Kerr County, Texas, to adequately prepare for deadly flash flooding earlier this month highlighted this fact—and even prompted the administration to reconsider completely eliminating FEMA, although the agency’s fate remains uncertain. Reuters reported in May that FEMA had lost about a third of its full-time staff since Trump took office.

Researchers surveyed more than 1,600 state and local emergency management directors across the country, collecting responses between August 2024 and March 2025. Survey respondents reported they were “overworked, underpaid, understaffed, and underappreciated.” They said their work was hamstrung by a lack of funding, staffing shortages, organizational challenges and widespread misunderstanding about the role of emergency management in government. Many had little time to think strategically or long-term about their work. “In local emergency management we’re mostly just trying to keep our heads above water,” one director explained.

In a statement to Inside Climate News, an Argonne National Laboratory spokesperson said the study was developed “at the request of FEMA as part of a broader, data-driven effort to better understand emergency management capacity across state, local, and territorial jurisdictions.” FEMA did not respond to a request for comment.

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Before Trump’s second term, climate change and increasing disaster risk in the United States had already stretched local and state emergency management thin. But the compounding effects of cancelled funding and federal chaos has “created a crisis,” she said. “You have to ensure that there is capacity at the state level in particular to make up for [federal resources],” Montano said. “And what the report very clearly shows is that capacity does not exist.”

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28072025/emergency-managers-overworked-as-fema-shrinks/