FEMA hurricane – Markwayne Mullin says he’ll end FEMA spending freezes and replace top leadership, but employees and experts warn key functions remain stalled as hurricane season nears.
FEMA is heading into hurricane season amid uncertainty about whether it can quickly regain the capacity it lost during a tumultuous year inside the agency.
The first year of the Trump administration delivered a blow to FEMA’s ability to respond and prepare for disasters. not just through budget choices but through internal disruption.. A range of actions—including a freeze on most disaster recovery and response spending—hampered FEMA’s core work: approving aid. moving money to communities. and investing in future resilience.. At the same time. leaked information earlier this year suggested DHS was considering major reductions to on-the-ground staffing. a shift that raised alarms among emergency management professionals.
President Trump’s firing of Kristi Noem last month briefly raised expectations that the agency’s brakes might come off.. Noem’s successor, former Oklahoma Sen.. Markwayne Mullin. has pledged to end the spending freeze and has promised to install a permanent FEMA administrator—an administrative step Noem did not complete.. But the leadership reset is unfolding slowly. and some FEMA staff say operations on the ground haven’t fundamentally changed yet.. In the meantime, morale remains low and many decisions still appear to depend on an interim chain of approval.
One of the most consequential issues is timing.. Hurricane season is not a theoretical calendar item; it is a rolling. operational reality for emergency managers who must plan staffing. contracts. communications. and incident support well before the first major storm.. FEMA officials and disaster response experts say they cannot yet confirm that Mullin can restore FEMA to a “pre-Noem” level of functionality fast enough—or at all in the exact form employees once expected.. Even if some reconstruction payments have been unfrozen, FEMA officials describe ongoing bottlenecks and lingering limbo in key agency functions.
Mullin promises changes, but FEMA operations lag
A close read of what FEMA staff describe suggests a mismatch between political announcements and operational reality.. Some expenses and disaster reconstruction work still require high-level signoff from Karen Evans. the handpicked interim administrator. until Mullin’s chosen permanent leader is confirmed by the Senate.. That means communities may see partial relief without experiencing the kind of broader reset they need during the most operationally intense months of the year.
There are also warning signs beyond staffing and approvals.. FEMA’s long-term readiness work—its ability to fund mitigation and resilience projects that can reduce future damage—has faced delays.. Certain preparation efforts appear inactive. and at least one resilience program’s elimination plan was halted only after a court order.. For communities that rely on federal mitigation grants to strengthen flood protection. harden infrastructure. or reduce risk in vulnerable neighborhoods. these gaps can carry forward for years.
The flood insurance disruption adds risk
Perhaps the most immediate policy vulnerability is the strain on systems that support day-to-day risk management, not just emergency response.. The National Flood Insurance Program. which provides subsidized flood coverage to millions of households. depends on a rating system that incentivizes communities to adopt flood-protection measures.. If the contract managing that rating system lapses—or if oversight is paused—then the discounts that encourage local mitigation can stop working. leaving a critical lever of flood preparedness temporarily out of operation.
For homeowners in flood-prone regions, the impact isn’t abstract.. Changes in discounts and oversight can affect affordability and planning decisions. and the absence of federal monitoring can leave the nation’s patchwork of local floodplain policies without the guidance that has historically reinforced better building and rebuilding practices.. In a disaster year. those effects become more than administrative issues—they become real constraints on who can prepare and how quickly.
A smaller FEMA role may be the real pivot
Even if Mullin reverses some of Noem’s most disruptive choices. the direction of travel may still be set by a broader political argument about federal power in disaster management.. Trump has long maintained that states should shoulder more of the burden for preparedness and response. with the federal government acting in a reduced “supporting” role.. Mullin’s comments during a North Carolina visit—suggesting FEMA should not be a “first responder” but a backstop for states that already have capacity—have unsettled some current and former FEMA employees.
The core dispute is not whether states matter.. In hurricane-prone places like Florida and Texas, well-funded emergency management departments can coordinate post-storm operations and keep recovery moving.. The concern among experts is scale and capability.. Storm impacts do not respect budgets. and disaster costs often spike beyond what local governments can manage—especially in states with fewer fiscal resources.. Experts warn that shifting responsibility without a prolonged transition and ample support could widen inequality in recovery. leaving poorer or less-resourced regions to absorb a heavier burden.
Why this decision could shape next year’s disasters
The risk for FEMA as hurricane season approaches is that uncertainty has a compounding effect.. When staff. programs. and approvals are in flux. the agency’s ability to act decisively in the early phase of disasters is reduced.. It also affects prevention: mitigation programs work best when they are steady enough for local governments to plan multi-year upgrades.. If funding pathways remain unpredictable, some communities may delay resilience work—or pursue stopgap measures that cost more later.
There is also a political and operational tension embedded in the approach: FEMA’s reimbursement model means states often need to submit claims and meet federal rules for recovery money.. If federal assistance becomes less predictable or less available. states may be forced into emergency funding modes that can stretch budgets and slow infrastructure repairs.. Some places have already been pushed into austerity-style recovery, launching new state-level disaster funds when federal dollars fail to arrive.
Any lasting reform that truly changes FEMA’s role would require Congress. but the administration has signaled it is willing to shrink FEMA’s footprint through executive decisions and reduced assistance.. That approach leaves states planning under the assumption that the federal backstop may not arrive when it once did.. For emergency managers. planners. and local leaders. the practical outcome is a permanent shift from “prepare for the storm and the system” to “prepare for the storm and fewer guarantees.”
For now. Mullin’s promise to end the spending freeze and fill top leadership roles offers a reason for cautious optimism.. But the clock is already running.. If hurricane season begins before FEMA’s internal systems stabilize. the agency could face the hardest test of its credibility—not in press statements. but in whether it can mobilize. approve. and support recovery with the speed disasters demand.