MIAMI — Every hurricane season in Florida comes with uncertainty but there’s a surprising new source of questions this year surrounding the federal agency that responds to disasters and has historically helped pay for often massive cleanup and recovery costs.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, already down thousands of employees under cuts directed by the Trump administration, is also under new marching orders to slash federal spending on disaster responses, leaving bigger shares of the bills to state and local governments.

Republican state leaders — starting with Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott — have dismissed serious concerns over the FEMA overhaul, arguing that Florida has always directed response in the immediate wake of the storms.

“On the core prep, response and then stabilize and get people back to normal, just know that we’ve never relied on FEMA for any of that here in the state of Florida,” DeSantis told reporters last week.

But he acknowledged there are still unresolved issues over how much, or how little, FEMA will pay for after hurricanes and other disasters. “We’re working through that,” he said. “I assume that people will still qualify, but who knows how generous and all that.”

South Florida governments say they are going into the season with more unknowns than normal. One is even talking about creating a brand-new disaster fund to cover the shortfalls they might see under the new regime. FEMA has floated proposals to sharply reduce federal financial help — a move that might not impact major hurricanes but could leave Florida fully on the hook for its smaller disasters, like the tornadoes that tore through Tallahassee last year or the massive flood that submerged Fort Lauderdale in 2023.

“Local governments are going to be expected to pick up a bigger part of the tab. That could not only be costly, but it could put extra strain and stress, even in a state as prepared as Florida,” said Andrew Rumbach, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, which focuses on climate and disasters.

FEMA’s new leadership has bristled at questions about whether it was prepared for the looming hurricane season, one that forecasters predict will again be busy. A FEMA spokesperson dismissed comments from former employees as an example of the bureaucratic intransigence that’s hobbled the agency.

“FEMA is shifting from bloated, DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens. The old processes are being replaced because they failed Americans in real emergencies for decades. Comments about ‘not being ready or prepared’ are coming from the same ex-FEMA employees that failed Americans for decades,” said FEMA spokesman Geoff Harbaugh.

FEMA rescinded its official strategic plan for the hurricane season last week and has yet to release a new one. This comes a week after CBS News reported that a leaked presentation from inside the agency noted, “As FEMA transforms to a smaller footprint, the intent for this hurricane season is not well understood, thus FEMA is not ready.”

It potentially sets up as a stress test of Florida’s vaunted emergency response capabilities. Despite the questions about Washington’s response, Florida officials insist the state is prepared for the hurricane season — at least for the immediate response.

Scott, who directed state response to a string of hurricanes while governor, praised the workers at FEMA he’s dealt with in the past but, echoing DeSantis, said Florida emergency managers are at the front lines of disasters.

“They’re not a first responder. FEMA is primarily a piggy bank,” he said. “They’re not the ones that are going to do house rescues. They’re not the ones who do debris pickup. They pay for things.”

“If there’s great hurricane response, it’s tied to what the governor does,” he said.

Cuts keep coming

Still, there are big questions over the capabilities of a downsized FEMA. The agency has shed roughly 2,000 full-time staff members and over a dozen senior leaders since January as part of the Trump administration’s reductions. The personnel reductions come as the agency faces a $646 million budget cut and renewed calls from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “eliminate FEMA as it exists today.”

“FEMA is ready, but not to handle multiple events or to handle a catastrophic event,” said Michael Coen, former chief of staff at FEMA during the Biden and Obama administrations. “The agency does have significant capability, it’s just been degraded since Jan. 20.”

The staffing reductions have already been felt across the country. In Missouri, St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer reported that “FEMA has not been on the ground” following recent tornadoes there. In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves is still waiting on federal disaster assistance for tornado damage in March.

Former FEMA acting director Cameron Hamilton was fired just one day after telling Congress that eliminating the agency would not serve “the best interest of the American people.” His replacement, David Richardson, told staffers his goal is to move much of the response and recovery operations down to the state level.

The timing of the restructuring is concerning officials as Florida prepares for “a particularly active” hurricane season with three to five major hurricanes expected, according to the assessment by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While the state maintains robust capabilities and a pair of FEMA-backed search and rescue task force teams in the Miami-Dade area, Coen forecasts that personnel cuts could hinder federal recovery.

“There’s not going to be probably enough staff,” Coen said. “It’s going to be the recovery.”

He added, “There may be a hurricane that impacts Florida, where the people of Florida are going to be shocked that there’s no disaster declaration.”

Local and state governments will foot the bill

There are signs that the federal agency is already moving toward pushing costs back toward the states.

A leaked memo from the former acting administrator, Hamilton, said the agency wants to quadruple the threshold for what qualifies as a presidential disaster — and unlocking all the federal cash that comes with it.

If enacted, that higher threshold would mean that 71% of all national events from 2008 to 2024 wouldn’t have qualified for disaster assistance, a report by the Urban Institute found.

In Florida, all of the big hurricanes in recent years would still be covered, even with a quadrupled threshold. But notably, even a slight increase in that threshold would have meant Florida got no federal assistance for the tornado spree in Tallahassee last year, or the rain bomb that flooded Fort Lauderdale in 2023, a Herald analysis found.

That’s both individual assistance — the cash survivors can claim directly from FEMA — as well as public assistance, including federal reimbursements for things like debris cleanup or overtime costs for first responders.

For the tornadoes, FEMA shelled out $9.5 million to about 3,300 people. And for the flood that submerged Fort Lauderdale, the agency doled out a whopping $38.9 million to 9,600 residents, as well as another $5.2 million to local governments.

Another suggestion in the memo is to lower the percentage of the tab that the federal government picks up in a disaster. The standard is that the feds carry 75% of the cost at a minimum, with state and local governments paying the rest.

But in recent years, the agency has paid much more, all the way to 100% — like during debris cleanup in Florida after Hurricane Milton, after Hurricane Helene, or after the Surfside condominium collapse — often at the direct request of DeSantis.

Per the memo, FEMA is considering dropping its contribution back to the minimum 75%. And it’s already doing so in some situations.

Last week, the agency declined to continue offering 100% reimbursement for North Carolina’s continued cleanup of Tropical Storm Helene.

“FEMA’s denial of our appeal will cost North Carolina taxpayers potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up out west. The money we have to pay toward debris removal will mean less money towards supporting our small businesses, rebuilding downtown infrastructure, repairing our water and sewer systems, and other critical needs,” North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein said in a statement.

Last-minute changes

As concerns have grown among lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the agency has scrambled to get up to speed.

An internal memo obtained by the Miami Herald outlined how Noem had signed three memos on May 14 that will “significantly improve FEMA’s readiness posture going into hurricane season,” including the approval of 2,652 six-month employees, training and education at FEMA centers and training for firefighters who comprise a critical portion of first responders.

The question now is if the reversals can be implemented before the first storm lands.

“They’re on their back foot,” said Jeremy Edwards, the deputy director for public affairs at FEMA during the Biden administration. “They took all these actions, they let thousands of people go … they cancelled trainings. And less than two weeks ahead of hurricane season, they’re starting some programs back up. I’m worried it may be too little, too late.”

Harbaugh, a FEMA spokesman, waved off concerns from former officials and told the Herald, “In fact, their gross negligence and failures are the exact reason President Trump established a review council to change FEMA.”

The review council met for the first time on May 20, and it’s Florida-heavy. Of the ten members, three are from the Sunshine State, including Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor.

Noem, who co-chairs the council, told members the goal was to maintain the core responsibilities of FEMA but slim it down and rebrand it with a new name.

“The president has said to me many times that he believes that FEMA should be eliminated as it exists. What that means is this agency should be re-imagined,” she said. “Our vision is that states should respond to their disasters, and we should be there to support them.”

She continually pointed to Florida as a model of what that new relationship could look like — where the state responds first, with plenty of help from private companies.

Kevin Guthrie, the head of Florida’s emergency management department, rattled off the state’s bragging rights: debris is picked up 24/7 after a storm, power is restored within 120 hours, roads are reopened in 72 hours and schools are back online in under five business days.

“And we do all of that with 225 employees. We depend on the private sector to plus us up,” he said. “We had 1,000 extra folks for Helene and Milton.”

Local governments watching and waiting

Broward and Miami-Dade County told the Herald they were effectively in “wait and see” mode until — or if — any of the proposals in the memo are enacted. In the meantime, both counties say they’re keeping a close eye on FEMA news.

“If implemented, the proposed executive orders could potentially have an impact on how Miami-Dade County manages and recovers from disasters,” wrote Miami-Dade Spokeswoman Natalia Jaramillo in a statement. “While we continue to advocate for clear guidance and flexibility from FEMA, we’re also running internal scenarios and updating our fiscal strategy to ensure we can respond effectively even under potential new proposed constraints.”

Fort Lauderdale said it was floating the idea of creating a new contingency emergency fund to dip into if a storm (or a rain bomb) strikes.

“The City maintains a healthy fund balance to ensure that adequate resources are available to respond to unanticipated costs such as natural disasters. We are actively reviewing the City’s budgeting practices and fund balance policy to further refine the way that funds are reserved to swiftly, and effectively, respond to these events,” wrote city spokeswoman Ashley Doussard in a statement.

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