Disaster Response and FEMA

NPR reports that FEMA supervisors have begun telling staff that thousands of Cadre of On‑Call Response/Recovery Employees (CORE) on two‑ to four‑year contracts will not be renewed in 2026, even for workers embedded in communities still rebuilding from recent hurricanes, floods and wildfires. People who attended internal meetings say some divisions could lose around half their staff, and former senior officials estimate CORE workers account for roughly 40% of FEMA’s workforce—about 9,000 people as of 2022—handling everything from initial survivor assistance to years‑long reconstruction with state and local governments. The Trump administration, which has repeatedly derided FEMA as ineffective and floated eliminating it in its current form, has not publicly explained the cuts or released its promised reform blueprint, and the agency declined NPR’s questions about how response capacity will be affected. Former FEMA leaders Michael Coen, Deanne Criswell and ex‑press secretary Jeremy Edwards warn the non‑renewals will slow recovery in hard‑hit areas such as western North Carolina, Kentucky and multiple fire‑scarred parts of California, and say there appears to be no systematic plan to preserve critical chains of command or seasonal readiness for upcoming hurricane seasons. The move effectively shrinks frontline federal disaster staffing nationwide at a time when climate‑driven extremes are making recovery more complex and protracted, raising the risk that survivors wait longer for help the next time a major storm, fire or flood hits.