The Federal Emergency Management Agency is drastically scaling back the number of employees who help with disaster recovery efforts.
The agency’s Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery, or CORE employees, are often dispatched across the country and remain in communities years after a disaster. As the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, makes the cuts, there’s concern that places hit by tragedy could be left with fewer on-the-ground points of contact.
“The impact is going to be huge,” one current CORE employee told NOTUS about the layoffs. “I think of things like the LA wildfires and the Kerrville floods from last year that are really still in more of an active phase of recovery. There are recovery offices and FEMA staff performing essential recovery roles across the country for disasters going back five, six, seven years.”