More than a dozen Federal Emergency Management Agency employees were reportedly suspended after signing their names to a letter expressing concern that the inexperience of the agency’s current leadership could lead to a Katrina-like disaster response.
Several current FEMA employees received an email from the agency Tuesday stating that they had been placed on administrative leave “effectively immediately, and continuing till further notice,” according to emails reviewed by CBS News.
“While on administrative leave, you will be in a non-duty status while continuing to receive pay and benefits,” the letter to the suspended employees reportedly stated. Staffers were also told not to use the department’s telecommunication systems, visit the agency’s facilities or carry out their official duties, other than responding to Department of Homeland Security inquiries, according to CBS News.
FEMA on Wednesday told NOTUS in a statement that the agency’s “obligation is to survivors,” and that under Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, “FEMA will return to its mission of assisting Americans at their most vulnerable.”
“It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform,” a FEMA spokesperson said in a statement that was similar to the agency’s response to the public letter earlier this week. “Change is always hard. It is especially for those invested in the status quo, who have forgotten that their duty is to the American people not entrenched bureaucracy.”
The Washington Post was the first to report the suspensions. Nearly 200 employees signed Monday’s letter addressed to House and Senate committees and the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council, with the vast majority signing anonymously.
The letter questioned the qualifications of Noem, acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson and former Administrator Cameron Hamilton to manage the agency’s operations.
Employees also asked members of Congress to protect FEMA and DHS from “politically motivated firings.”
“Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, and our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters compel us to warn Congress and the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration,” the letter states. It goes on to argue that change is necessary “so that we can continue to lawfully uphold our individual oaths of office and serve our country as our mission dictates.”
August marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. The aftermath of the storm cost billions of dollars in damage and resulted in nearly 2,000 deaths. FEMA’s coordination and lackluster planning and response were heavily criticized, especially its aid distribution. As a result, FEMA went through major reform in the years that followed.
Responding to the public letter from the FEMA employees, Louisiana Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields called the “erosion to FEMA’s post-Katrina reforms” disturbing in a statement to NOTUS earlier this week.
“After Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana learned the hard way what happens when disaster response systems fail,” Fields said. “Those changes were put in place to make sure FEMA had qualified leadership, adequate staffing, and the independence it needed to protect the American People when disaster strikes. They were hard-won reforms, paid for in lives lost and communities broken.”
“With new reports coming out that those safeguards are being undone, I fear we are drifting backward,” Fields continued. “We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past.”
What FEMA’s future will be has been a longstanding question during President Donald Trump’s second term. He said in January he wants to “see the states take care of their own problems.” And Noem said in March that she wanted to “eliminate FEMA.” However, the administration abruptly shifted its tone following Trump’s visit to Texas after July’s deadly flash flooding.
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This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and Verite News.