Hurricane season is no joke
David Richardson, who became the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) last month, told FEMA employees on Monday that he did not know the United States had a hurricane season.
Richardson was put in charge of FEMA on May 8 after his predecessor, Cameron Hamilton, testified in Congress that he did not support President Trump's plan to shutter the agency. On his first day on the job, Richardson told staff that he was "here to carry out the president's intent for FEMA" and would "run right over" anyone who got in his way. Richardson has no experience in emergency management.
After Richardson's remarks about hurricane season leaked to the media, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that Richardson was making "a joke."
Regardless, hurricane season officially started in the United States on June 1 — and it is no laughing matter. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting that "an above-normal season is most likely" in the Northern Atlantic with 13-19 named storms and three to five major hurricanes. But, in less than six months, the Trump administration has significantly degraded the federal government's ability to forecast and respond to significant weather events.
Forecast fiasco
NOAA has lost hundreds of employees since Trump took office. The agency, which also oversees the National Weather Service (NWS), provides weather forecasts and monitors severe weather. Private weather companies, like the Weather Channel, rely on data from NOAA. Trump’s cuts to the agency could drastically impact the available data on approaching hurricanes.
According to Reuters, the agency has lost around 1,000 employees, or about 10% of its workforce, to staff cuts since Trump took office. Around 600 employees were from the NWS, according to Legislative Director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization Tom Fahy.
The cuts have left weather forecast offices extremely understaffed. In April, “nearly half of NWS forecast offices had 20% vacancy rates.” Many of the offices no longer have the necessary specialists, with at least 36 out of 122 forecast offices across the country “missing specialists in key roles,” according to CBS. This includes multiple cities along the Gulf Coast that are at risk for hurricanes. Some offices have even had to start closing overnight.
The staff shortages have also forced some forecast offices to cut back on weather balloon launches. Weather balloons, which gather necessary data for forecasts, are typically launched twice a day. But multiple cities have had to reduce the number of balloon launches to once a day, and some have eliminated them entirely. In March, the Associated Press reported that two meteorologists calculated that “14 of 83 U.S. balloon sites, or 17%, are doing partial or no launches.” Weather balloons play a crucial role in forecasting upcoming hurricanes. Former NOAA meteorologist Jeff Masters told the AP, “Hurricane forecasts, I’m expecting not to be as accurate this year because of that lack of balloon data.”
Two agency employees who worked as Hurricane Hunter flight directors were also fired, according to a Yale Climate Connections article written by Masters. The Hurricane Hunter program involves aircraft that fly into tropical storms and hurricanes to gather data. Cutting flight directors could result in fewer Hurricane Hunter flights and, therefore, less information about upcoming storms.
After letting hundreds of workers go, the NOAA tacitly admitted this week that it lacked the personnel necessary to do its work. The agency announced this week that it will be hiring for “mission-critical field positions” in order to “further stabilize frontline operations.”
In a May 2 letter, a group of former NWS directors warned that the cuts at NOAA and the NWS could be dangerous. “Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life,” the letter read.
Local meteorologists are also sounding the alarm that they may not be able to report on hurricanes as accurately this year. John Morales, a meteorologist for NBC 6 in South Florida, said during a broadcast that in the past, he has "confidently” gone on TV and reported on the direction of approaching hurricanes. “I am not sure I can do that this year. Because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science,” Morales said.
Nevertheless, the Trump administration has proposed cutting NOAA even further. A May draft budget proposal for 2026 suggested cutting NOAA’s budget by “nearly 30%,” or over $1.5 billion.
Derailing disaster response
Since Trump took office, FEMA has undergone significant downsizing. An internal FEMA report stated that the agency is “not ready” for the upcoming hurricane season.
In January, FEMA was already struggling with staffing. A 2022 report found that FEMA lacked 35% of the staff it needed, and heavy workloads were leading to stress and burnout in the employees it did have. Now, 2,000 employees — about 30% of FEMA’s full-time staff — have been fired or taken buy-outs. According to CNN, several highly experienced senior leaders were among the 2,000 who left the agency.
The Trump administration has also significantly reduced the training available to state and local emergency officials. These meetings help keep local officials up to date on the latest storm season predictions and allow relationship-building between state, federal, and local authorities, which former FEMA officials said helps make emergency response more effective.
The Trump administration has stated that it wants states to assume more responsibility for disaster relief. In March, Trump signed an executive order instructing state and local officials to increase their disaster response capacity as FEMA scales back.
While state and local authorities already bear the responsibility of coordinating the resources FEMA and other agencies provide in the event of an emergency, the executive order implies that they may also have to bear the financial burden. This could be devastating to small local governments that lack sufficient revenue to cover infrastructure repairs or help people who have lost their homes. Even in larger states, federal assistance plays a crucial role in emergency relief. Florida, for example, used $5.5 billion from FEMA to recover from Hurricane Irma in 2017.
Other cuts at FEMA are already hurting disaster relief efforts in small communities across the country. In 2020, the Trump administration established a program called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), which helped communities prepare infrastructure to better withstand future natural disasters. The program was expanded by Congress in 2021, and state and local authorities around the country have been awarded grants to shore up houses against wildfires or repair flood-prone sewage systems. But now, the Trump administration has cancelled all grants for projects that have not yet started construction, which impacts the majority of awardees and nearly $4 billion in infrastructure improvements.
Trump plans to make deeper cuts for FEMA in the future. His 2026 budget proposal slashes $646 million from FEMA grants. Eventually, Trump hopes to eliminate FEMA entirely.
“The president has indicated he wants to eliminate FEMA as it exists today, and to have states have more control over their emergency management response,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem recently told members of Congress.
What the hurricanes won’t destroy, Trump will. Despicable, deplorable, dangerous.
A "joke" that two FEMA staffers couldn't be sure was a joke? Even if it was in jest, and I'm just spitballing here, maybe we shouldn't be joking about storms that destroy lives and cause millions of dollars in damage?