President Donald Trump has convened a board to review the agency’s utility

President Donald Trump has convened a  board to  review the  agency's utility, considering eliminating or  regulating it just when Los Angeles needs it most.  
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Los Angeles,  devastated by wildfires and facing its worst natural disaster in decades,  will never  need the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)  again.
As new  wildfires threaten homes  in the second-largest  city in the United States, FEMA has deployed  about 550 experts to help displaced residents find shelter, access aid and coordinate  the removal of debris in neighborhoods  that have been turned into homes. They staff relief centers and  work with fire survivors, while more than 2,600 of their colleagues are still  helping with recovery efforts  after last year's hurricanes in North Carolina and  Florida.
A resident whose  home was destroyed speaks with a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) worker after the Eaton  Fire: 
Now, President Donald Trump  is questioning whether the agency the  United States turns to whenever  it is hit by major disasters should continue to play that role while installing a former Navy SEAL  with no prior FEMA experience as  its head.
"FEMA has not done  its job  in the last four years," Trump told Fox News, criticizing its performance in North Carolina in particular. "FEMA is going to  have a big  debate very  soon, because  I prefer that the states  deal with their own problems."  "Over the weekend, the president issued an executive order  creating a  board to conduct a  "comprehensive review" of the  agency. Trump's actions echo the vision for the agency  contained in Project 2025, the conservative roadmap for  reinventing the federal  government, which called for shifting more disaster recovery costs to states and cities.  That means "we need to take  even more seriously what's written in  the 2025  bill," because the proposed changes  "would disrupt America's emergency management system — not just at the federal level, but at the state and  national levels." . "local because of  the way our system is currently  interconnected," said Samantha Montano, a disaster researcher at the Massachusetts  Naval Academy. (Trump  consistently distanced himself from  the 2025  bill during the campaign, and a White House spokesman  repeated Thursday that the president "had nothing to do" with it.)
It's  unclear who Trump will  entrust with  managing and  perhaps overhauling FEMA. For now, the president has  chosen Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy  SEAL, to temporarily lead the agency,  along with Mary Comans, who has held several key  positions at FEMA. Hamilton has some  experience in emergency  management, but he has never overseen the response to large-scale disasters like the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles for weeks, destroying more than 15,000 structures and killing at least 28  people. Contrary to popular belief, FEMA does not automatically  assume disaster response when  fires, earthquakes, or storms strike. Local and state governments  mobilize first, then turn to FEMA  for federal  assistance and expertise.

"All disasters  begin and end  at the local level," said  Zach Stanford, an emergency management  consultant. "However, in disasters of the  magnitude of the  Los Angeles fires, state and federal  assistance is needed quickly to respond and support recovery — both  short-term and  long-term — to get communities back on their feet."
Trump  inherits an agency  strained by  a growing number of overlapping  disasters. By FEMA's own count, its  agents are currently responding to more than 100 major disasters,  as the agency's work typically continues long after the initial emergency has  passed.
"We're always working  on something, and  it seems like it's getting more  destructive," said Carrie Speranza, chair emeritus of FEMA's National Advisory Council, a  think tank for the agency. The status  of the board remains unclear under the new administration.  Hope's first emergency management  mandate was  in response to Hurricane Charley in 2004. "I can tell you  that since then, I don't  think the situation has improved much," he said. "In fact,  the situation has gotten worse."
The number of disaster declarations under the federal Stafford Act has increased from an average of 39 per fiscal year in the first 10 years after the  law was passed in 1988 to an average of 63  over the  past decade, a  62 percent increase reported this month by the Congressional Research Service.
Climate change has  increased the agency's workload,  leading to more frequent and intense disasters. Trump has  sometimes denied the reality of global warming, but he can't escape  the fact that "FEMA is on the front lines of dealing with the impacts of climate change," Montano  said.
Although the fires that  broke out in Los Angeles County on Jan. 7  came in the wake of last  year's devastating hurricanes, FEMA insisted in a statement this month that it has the resources to handle  them all without  harming any of the communities involved. Congress recently approved $29 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund, the agency noted, adding that its staff  "will continue to support the recovery  of these communities for as long as  necessary."
As of Wednesday, FEMA has provided more than $36 million in  assistance to California  wildfire survivors, Robert Fenton Jr., the  agency's administrator for Region  9, said at a  news conference with nearly 10,000 people registered to receive  assistance, about $12.7 million of the  funds went to  "severe needs  assistance," he said, while the rest  covers personal property and  travel assistance. A FEMA  relief center serving residents affected by the Eaton  Fire in  Pasadena on Jan. 17.  Photo: Jill Connelly/Bloomberg
Staffing has  long been a concern. At the start of  FY 2022, "FEMA had approximately 11,400 disaster  workers and a staffing goal of 17,670, creating an overall staffing  deficit of approximately 6,200  people (35%) across  all positions," according to a  report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office  issued in May 2023. FEMA officials attributed some of the staffing  shortages to "managing the  surge in disaster activity during the year, which increased  employee burnout and attrition," the  report said  Staffing levels are generally not  a concern, with one  exception, Speranza said. There  is currently no federal coordinating  officer on standby to lead federal efforts at  a particular incident site. That means  each new disaster would require the agency to reassign a  coordinator from an ongoing operation, said Craig Fugate, who led FEMA under former President Barack Obama. But "reassigning an experienced  FEMA officer from an older disaster to a new incident ensures  that FEMA can  use their expertise where  it is most needed," he said. Trump has taken a  negative view of the agency's recent work, at least in his public comments. "Our country  is no longer  able to provide basic services in times of emergency, as the wonderful people of North  Carolina have recently demonstrated," she said in  her inaugural address, referring to Hurricane Helene. "Or more  recently in Los Angeles, where we  see tragic fires  that continue to burn."  Ms. Speranza said the agency  was fully capable of doing its  job. But she wants the country to do a better job  of preparing for emergencies  like floods and  fires, rather than focusing  primarily on response.  She said rushing from crisis to  crisis leads to burnout, no matter how dedicated  FEMA staff  are. "A  lot of their  staff," she said,  "literally work disaster after disaster."

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