FEMA’s interim leader gives assurances, despite local concerns over disaster response

Local officials in hurricane-prone states are expressing concerns over the Trump administration’s ability to respond to their disaster needs. But the interim leader of the Federal Emergency Management Agency says it’s adequately staffed with the ability to hire more emergency response workers if needed. 

Robert Fenton Jr., FEMA’s interim director, is in New Orleans this week for the annual Gulf and Atlantic Hurricane Summit. At a news conference Tuesday, he told journalists his agency currently has 20,000 employees, WVUE-TV reported. 

“We are not in a situation where we do not have sufficient resources,” Fenton said. 

Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, FEMA has 5,000 fewer employees, according to testimony last month from the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security. The departures are attributed to firings and resignations.

Trump has consistently called for FEMA to be streamlined, if not jettisoned entirely, during his second term. Disaster preparedness and response is best left to state and local governments, the president has said. His advisers have also pushed for major changes to how the federal government finances disaster recovery, placing more of the burden on individuals and local institutions.

A coalition of local elected leaders and former government officials have organized under the banner Sabotaging Our Safety to raise awareness of what they see as the Trump administration’s shortcomings on disaster response. 

They include Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis, D-Baton Rouge, who took part in a video news conference Tuesday to detail FEMA’s leadership struggles. The commission regulates power and water utilities in the state and closely follows their storm restoration and cost recovery efforts. 

“What we have seen under the Trump administration is a lack of strategic planning, political leadership and turmoil, and no real plan,” Lewis said.

Rafael Lemaitre, former head of FEMA public affairs under President Barack Obama, is also on the Sabotaging Our Safety advisory council. During the news conference, he listed a string of high-level departures from FEMA since Trump has taken office.

They include Tony Robinson, the administrator for FEMA Region 6, which covers Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Robinson resigned at the end of last June after 37 years with the agency, when he was in charge of disaster response for several major hurricanes, including Katrina and Harvey. 

Robinson made his exit just days before flash floods in Texas killed 139 people, including 27 girls at Camp Mystic in Kerr County. Just three weeks after the catastrophe, FEMA’s national director of search and rescue quit, citing bureaucratic delays that hindered the agency’s response.  

Critics of the Trump administration have also noted the president’s reluctance to grant emergency disaster declarations, which trigger FEMA response and resources to affected areas. States with Democratic leadership are three times less likely to have their application for emergency assistance approved, Politico reported in March.

“What we’ve seen over the past year and a half is the Trump administration turn FEMA into a political weapon,” Lamaitre said. “We’ve seen them withhold aid to blue states while fast tracking aid to red states.”

FEMA has not had a permanent administrator since Trump returned office. His nominee for the position, Cameron Hamilton, was first made interim leader in January 2025, but Trump fired him five months later for telling Congress he didn’t support the president’s view that FEMA should be dismantled.

Though Hamilton has seemingly returned to Trump’s good graces, Sabotaging our Safety questions whether he has the experience Congress requires for FEMA’s top administrator. 

Before his role at FEMA, Hamilton was documented having spread misinformation about the Biden administration using FEMA resources to support illegal immigration.  

A former Navy SEAL operator, Hamilton worked in counterterrorism with the State Department and was director of the Emergency Medical Services Division with Homeland Security before Trump picked him to lead FEMA on a temporary basis in January 2025.

Hamilton’s permanent nomination awaits Senate confirmation hearings and a full floor vote.

Fenton, who assumed his role last month, is the latest of a string of interim leaders since Hamilton’s dismissal. He is a former regional director for FEMA with more than 30 years experience in the agency.

In New Orleans, Fenton told reporters he’s regularly in touch with Hamilton to aid in his transition once confirmed.

“I’m a bridge until he comes here,” Fenton said. “We are very much aligned and we talk every day.”