Since assuming office, President Donald Trump and his cabinet of curiosities have made it their mission to eliminate the government agencies that keep our nation afloat. One of the agencies caught in Trump’s crosshairs, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has experienced mass layoffs, with 6,000 employees fired in 2025. The onslaught doesn’t stop there. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has recently outlined a plan to cut the agency in half, reducing on-call recovery staff by 41% and surge staffing by 85%.
The timing of these cuts could not be more dangerous. This past week, a series of devastating snowstorms, stretching from New Mexico all the way to Maine, ravaged communities across the United States. The results are historic and devastating. So far, 110 deaths have been linked to these snowstorms, with roughly half of them in Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. At the peak of last week’s storm, more than 700,000 homes and businesses were left without power, and over 18,000 flights were canceled. What makes these storms so catastrophic are their proportions — they’re hitting regions that rarely feel the impacts of winter and thus do not have the infrastructure to deal with a storm of this magnitude. That is why FEMA’s reductions are so devastating.
Disasters aren’t preventable, but the deaths they cause can be. FEMA’s mandate is to provide relief to states when a natural disaster occurs, and more importantly, to help establish infrastructure to ensure immediate preparedness in advance. State and local resiliency is essential, but inadequate — FEMA needs to fill in the gaps. Not all states are equally ready; New Hampshire, unlike Tennessee and Mississippi, was significantly and understandably more prepared for the snow storm last week. It makes no sense to expect the Tennessee state legislature to have the same blizzard budget as Vermont, and a Louisanan to have as much salt for their driveway as a Granite Stater. Our fellow Americans in the South, who aren’t as equipped for weather events like this, are suffering, and it’s the Trump administration’s fault.
FEMA is only as functional as it is quick, and Noem’s team is dragging its feet. Last July, Noem issued a directive stating that any expenditure over $100,000 had to be personally signed off by her office in order to reduce wasteful spending. This leaves many states scrambling to produce relief money, effectively depending on an “IOU” from Noem. According to anonymous FEMA employees familiar with Noem’s backlog, over $17 billion in relief funds are currently bottlenecked, with some outstanding aid dating as far back as 2017. Simply put: that IOU is going to take a while.
The Trump administration recently granted emergency aid declarations for a dozen states, but FEMA’s inefficiency begs the question: will the response be enough? With such massive reductions in the agency’s response team, and more drastic reductions on the way, will the agency be able to adequately provide the states with the personnel and equipment they desperately need?
The answer is likely no. Noem’s FEMA has already established a precedent of incompetence and negligence. Last July, a catastrophic Texas flood claimed the lives of at least 136 people at Camp Mystic. FEMA’s response was pathetic. The agency’s severe cuts left survivors stranded. A shocking 36% of calls were answered on July 6, with a mere 16% on July 7. For reference, prior to Noem’s drastic cuts, comparable crises experienced a 99.7% call answer rate. Additionally, in response to the Texas floods, FEMA deployed 86 staffers immediately and 225 the following day. This was a mere fraction of the response other, pre-Noem disasters of that scale received. Furthermore, a FEMA employee told CNN that a request for aerial imagery to assist in local search and rescue operations was severely delayed by Noem’s approval process.
How many of those Texas deaths were preventable? How many of the 110 deaths this past week were preventable?
These deaths are disaster-induced, but they are also Trump-induced. It is impossible to calculate which exact deaths could have been prevented, but don’t let that lack of statistical confirmation keep you from holding Trump accountable. The Trump administration’s gross mishandling of FEMA has left countless Americans at risk.
Trump’s obsession with destroying the agencies we depend on is crushing us. As un-sexy as the bureaucracy is, it saves lives. Trump is letting people die and then dementedly blaming the Democrats and the weather. By “draining the swamp,” he’s letting America flood.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
