In an open letter sent Monday, the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, more than 180 current and former employees said budget cuts, personnel decisions and other reforms enacted under President Donald Trump could recreate conditions that led to the widely criticized FEMA response to the 2005 hurricane.
Of the 182 senders, 36 signed their names -- the rest feared retaliation and withheld their identities.
"Around 30" employees were suspended, The New York Times reported Tuesday evening, citing their review of emails.
The emails informed FEMA employees they were on administrative leave effective immediately, operating "in a non-duty status while continuing to receive pay and benefits," The Washington Post reported the letters as saying.
FEMA employee Virginia Case told CNN she received an emailed notice Tuesday evening that she'd been placed on paid leave from her job as a supervisory management and program analyst.
"I'm disappointed but not surprised," Case said, according to the US outlet.
"I'm also proud of those of us who stood up, regardless of what it might mean for our jobs. The public deserves to know what's happening, because lives and communities will suffer if this continues."
Case said she knew of at least six other FEMA workers who received similar emails.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has stated that he wants to abolish FEMA and let states "take care of their own problems."
He accuses the agency of inefficiency and claims without evidence that it has a pervasive political bias against Republican-led states.
Hurricane Katrina slammed into the US Gulf Coast in late August 2005, causing catastrophic flooding in the Louisiana metropolis of New Orleans.
More than 1,000 died in the disaster, which also caused over $100 billion in damage.
The federal government's response to the catastrophe was fiercely criticized for confusing communications and delays in providing aid to people displaced by floods.
The following year, Congress adopted a law -- the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, or PKEMRA -- to improve natural disaster response.
"Two decades later, FEMA is enacting processes and leadership structures that echo the conditions PKEMRA was designed to prevent," the open letter sent Monday alleged.
The letter writers asked Congress to make FEMA a Cabinet-level independent agency and to protect it from "politically motivated firings," among other measures.
Restrictions on spending introduced by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reduce "FEMA's authorities and capabilities to swiftly deliver our mission," the letter says.
Noem has required a personal review of any FEMA contracts, grants and mission assignments over $100,000.
"Consequences of this manual review became tragically clear during the July 2025 floods in Kerrville, Texas, when mission assignments were delayed up to 72 hours," the letter says.
One-third of FEMA's full-time staff have left the agency this year, the letter says, largely due to budget cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency formerly led by billionaire Elon Musk.
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