FEMA’s Bob Fenton says agency is ready for hurricane season — despite shutdown fallout and staffing gaps
Inside FEMA’s National Response Coordination Center in Washington, a simulated Category 2 hurricane bore down on Creole, Louisiana, as maps glowed on screens and staff announcements echoed over the PA system. Emergency managers hunched over laptops, trading updates in side conversations. The Salvation Army, American Red Cross, Department of Interior, National Guard, Coast Guard and state and local coordinators filled rows of desks — a full disaster response ecosystem rehearsing just days before the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season officially begins June 1.
The exercise, code-named “Silent Echo,” unfolded at a moment when FEMA itself is under scrutiny. The agency is emerging from a bruising government shutdown while simultaneously grappling with ongoing wildfires and the security demands of the FIFA World Cup. Adding to the pressure, a Trump-appointed review council recently proposed a fundamental redesign of the federal government’s role in disaster response.
Bob Fenton, FEMA’s acting administrator, stood at the center of it all — a career emergency manager with more than three decades of experience. When asked whether FEMA has been hollowed out, Fenton pointed to his own track record: “I’m here. And I have over three decades of experience.”
Fenton is not the agency’s last man standing, but he is the only FEMA regional director to remain in place through both the Biden administration and the second Trump administration. Over the years, he has coordinated DHS Operations Allies Welcome, helped lead FEMA’s COVID-19 response and worked on disaster recovery at every scale. He recently returned from recovery efforts in Guam and the Mariana Islands after a Category 4-equivalent super typhoon made landfall.
“Oh, we’re ready for hurricane season,” Fenton told CBS News in an exclusive interview. “This is something we do every year. It’s in our DNA,” he said, gesturing to the personnel busy behind him.
But his confidence came with caveats — particularly the need for state and local governments to take the lead on recovery. A May 14 letter from House Homeland Security Committee Democrats warned that FEMA has lost more than 5,000 employees since January 2025 and that nearly half of the agency’s top 38 leadership positions are vacant. Separately, the Government Accountability Office found last year that FEMA began the 2025 hurricane season with just 12% of its incident management workforce available — the personnel who can be deployed to active disasters or coordinate federal support.
Fenton pushed back, saying the numbers have improved. “We have a little bit over 30% of our disaster workforce ready right now,” he said. “Between 30 and 40% is normal availability.” He estimated that another 30% of FEMA workers are deployed, with another 30% in training, credentialing, on leave or otherwise assigned. “I’m comfortable with where we’re at,” he added. “We have a very experienced staff here.”
Still, he acknowledged the agency is playing catch-up. The record DHS partial government shutdown “had a significant impact on us,” Fenton said. “Any time that you’re closed for 70-something days and then 40-something days this year — over 100 days in total this year — it has an impact.” FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund also ran critically low, dropping below $3 billion in April, forcing the agency to restrict spending just weeks before hurricane season. “We are playing catch-up,” Fenton conceded. “But we play catch-up pretty quick here.”
He said FEMA is now pushing out funding for past disasters after receiving money from Congress, and restarting preparedness work that had been delayed. “It impacts our readiness ability,” Fenton said of the shutdown, “which translates to the readiness of the nation — whether that’s the individual or state and local government, or whether that’s our team.”
FEMA is also on a mission to rebuild its workforce. After laying off roughly 200 disaster response employees earlier this year, the agency recently moved to bring them back, citing the need to “stabilize” personnel ahead of hurricane season and the World Cup. Court depositions indicate DHS had previously ordered FEMA to develop plans to cut as much as 50% of its personnel. Fenton did not directly say that plan is dead, but emphasized that FEMA is now hiring. “We have a secretary that very much cares about our mission, cares about our workforce, and has given us authority to start the hiring process. We are aggressively hiring right now.”
The workforce question is not just about headcount — it’s about experience. Institutional knowledge helps emergency managers know who to call, what to move, which state systems are brittle and which local officials may already be overwhelmed. Fenton’s message to employees was simple: believe. “My first all-hands meeting here, I used the song ‘Just Believe,’” he said, borrowing the idea from San Francisco Giants games. “I want everyone here to believe not only in our mission, which they do, but believe in leadership.”
Another concern ahead of hurricane season is HURREVAC, the free, web-based tool used by local emergency managers nationwide to track hazards and plan evacuation timelines. The May 14 congressional letter urged FEMA and DHS to restore the HURREVAC contract after a stalled renewal jeopardized access. “The HURREVAC system, I think, is ready to go this year,” Fenton said, noting FEMA will test the system during an exercise with NOAA, the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. “We’re going to give the best information we can to local and state governments to enable them to make the best decisions.”
FEMA’s hurricane preparations are unfolding alongside another major test: the FIFA World Cup, which demands enormous security and emergency management resources in cities nationwide. Fenton said the shutdown delayed millions in grant funding to state and local governments preparing for the games, including for training, equipment and counter-drone technology. “We’ve almost pushed out $900 million in grants,” he said, putting the figure at roughly $875 million. “But because of the lapse, it was delayed.”
The acting administrator said FEMA now has teams out at venue sites with state and local partners, but acknowledged that the overlap with hurricane season illustrates FEMA’s larger challenge. Hurricanes don’t wait for wildfire season to end. A hazmat event can happen the same weekend FEMA is preparing for the World Cup. Earthquakes give no warning. Floods now cut through communities far from the coast. “It’s not knowing what’s coming next,” Fenton said. “We need to prepare for all hazards here.”
FEMA is still working through a backlog of COVID-19 response reimbursements. The National Association of Counties reported roughly $11 billion in delayed reimbursements to 45 states. Fenton said the agency is now “more than 90%” through COVID funding, though he did not give an exact remaining dollar amount. “There’s still some decisions to be made,” he said. “There’s some work we’re still going through.” He noted that FEMA had recently put out “almost $5 billion” in disaster and COVID funding since the DHS funding lapse ended.
In post-hurricane Helene North Carolina, frustration with FEMA takes a different form — not uncertainty over whether the agency will show up, but whether it can move fast enough. Fenton acknowledged FEMA’s red tape. “There is bureaucracy over the years that’s been built in FEMA,” he said. “Some of that is through legislation that’s been put on us. Some of that is through policies that we’ve put in place.” He added that DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s decision to rescind a prior policy requiring review of contracts and grants over $100,000 should help move things faster.
Fenton also revealed that FEMA is beginning to use artificial intelligence, including in its Individual Assistance program, which helps survivors apply for aid. FEMA workers currently have to search through “tons of documents” to answer survivor questions. AI could help staff quickly retrieve information, support automated calls and improve grant work. Fenton said FEMA is running pilot programs now and hopes to begin using AI in Individual Assistance by the end of the fall. “It’s about a 20-something-year-old system that will be modernized and start to leverage AI,” he added. Pressed about privacy, he said FEMA would not use public tools for survivor data. “Our AI is a DHS internal AI system. We’re not going out to the World Wide Web.”
The promise is faster service. The risk is whether disaster survivors — often at their most vulnerable — can trust a federal agency in transition to modernize without compromising privacy, accuracy or access.
On flood insurance, Fenton warned Americans not to confuse FEMA assistance with insurance. “There’s a misconception that FEMA is going to make you whole when you get hit by a disaster,” he said. FEMA grants are meant for immediate needs: sheltering, temporary housing, and help getting into safe and sanitary conditions. The average individual grant over the last five years has been about $6,000. “The best way to protect yourself is insurance,” he said, noting that flood insurance generally takes 30 days to become active. “Go ahead and do that now if you’re trying to do it for this season.”
The FEMA Review Council’s final report earlier this month recommended shifting more responsibility to states and local governments. The council also suggested moving Americans’ flood insurance coverage from the federally managed National Flood Insurance Program toward the private market. The NFIP is currently authorized only through Sept. 30, 2026, unless Congress acts again. “I think there’s a move to ensure states are supported and take on more of the responsibility for managing these events,” Fenton said. “That will happen over time. It’s not an immediate turn of the light switch.”
Asked whether governors should worry FEMA might not show up in the same way it has in the past, Fenton was direct: “Look behind me. We are here. We are training. We are preparing for the next event.”