Ashley Siefert Nunes
WASHINGTON—Hundreds of employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which has a primary role of helping people before, during, and after climate and extreme weather disasters, have been fired. This continues an alarming assault by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s “DOGE” on federal agencies tasked with lifesaving work.
In 2024 alone, the United States experienced 100 major disaster declarations. Of those, 27 crossed the billion-dollar threshold for damages and collectively contributed to the deaths of at least 568 people with a total economic cost of $182.7 billion, according to data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) tracked extreme weather alerts in real time during the 2024 Danger Season—roughly May through October in the Northern Hemisphere when U.S. climate change impacts are at their peak and increasingly likely to collide with one another—and found that 100% of the U.S. population faced an alert.
Below is a statement by Shana Udvardy, a senior climate resilience policy analyst at UCS.
“FEMA is the frontline of our nation’s disaster response efforts to help get communities back on their feet quickly after disaster strikes. The indiscriminate mass firing of essential FEMA staff will cause endless disruption to an agency that was already inarguably understaffed and overstretched given the need to respond to back-to-back extreme weather and climate change-related disasters. Many of the staff let go have a wealth of experience and knowledge that’s irreplaceable and their departures will have longstanding consequences for the people that experience disaster at their doorstep.
“The world we knew even 20 years ago has been forever altered by the costly and deadly impacts of continued use of harmful fossil fuels. Rather than recklessly cutting agency staffing and budget, the Trump administration and Congress should be investing in programs and policies that better protect people before disasters strike, ensuring aid quickly reaches the people that need it most should the worst happen, and using the best available science to guide its decision making. With so many communities across the United States reeling from worsening wildfires, hurricanes, flooding and other extreme weather and climate events, the last thing we need is to hollow out an agency responsible for helping to save lives and rebuild after disasters.”
In addition to these mass firings, UCS experts can also discuss FEMA funding, impacts of growing climate risks on the homeowners’ insurance market, increasing the supply of climate-safe affordable housing units and disaster assistance for unhoused populations, and notable trends observed during the 2024 Danger Season. Other UCS experts available include Dr. Rachel Cleetus, the policy director for the Climate and Energy Program; Dr. Juan Declet-Barreto, a senior social scientist for climate vulnerability; and Zoe Middleton, the associate director of just climate resilience.