The interim chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday that he believes that President Donald Trump is a bold man with a bold vision for the agency, but that FEMA still does not have a complete plan to address the hurricane season.
“I would say that we are around 80 or 85% there,” said the interim administrator of FEMA, David Richardson, to the staff at a telephone conference, of which ABC obtained. “Next week, we will close that gap and probably will reach 97-98% of a plan. We will never have 100% of a plan. Even if we had 100% of a plan, a plan never survives the first contact. However, we will do everything possible to ensure that the plan is everything that covers.”
The telephone conference occurred after an internal document prepared for Richardson while taking the rudder of the agency responsible for managing federal disasters, indicated that the agency was poorly prepared for the next hurricane season, which begins on June 1.
“As FEMA transforms into a smaller footprint, the intention of this hurricane season is not well understood, so Fema is not ready,” according to the document, which was obtained by ABC News.
The interim administrator of FEMA, Richardson, organizes a meeting with the agency’s leadership in preparation for the hurricane season, on May 12, 2025, in Washington, DC.
Graham Haynes/Fema
At the telephone conference, Richardson said that he and staff sat for “about 90 minutes” and began to create a plan for this year’s disaster season.
He said the plan would be ready soon.
“Listen carefully: the intention of the 2025 season of disasters (s) safeguard the American people, return primacy to the United States, strengthen its ability to respond and recover, and coordinate federal assistance when it is considered necessary, while transforming into the future of FEMA,” said Richardson.
Richardson was placed in FEMA by National Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem after former interim administrator Cam Hamilton was fired last week due to his testimony in front of a camera panel, according to a source familiar with the matter, which was against the closing of the agency.
The interim administrator said that this version of FEMA will be different from the agency of the past.
“The president’s intention for FEMA is to make sure that Fema is only doing the things they should be doing,” he said during the telephone conference, adding that there is a “great impulse” to obtain resources from the United States.
“You can imagine that makes Fema look very, very different. In the end you will see, we will discover it,” he told the staff. “Remember, the president is a bold man. The president has a bold vision, makes bold statements.”
The previous document on the agency’s hurricane planning said that personnel limitations, hiring and lack of coordination with the states will also affect FEMA operations in the hurricane season.
A spokesman for the National Security Department told ABC News that the information in the document is “very out of context.”
“You are referring to a line in a deck of nineteen pages and the opinion without the foundation of an official within the agency,” said a DHS spokesman. “The slide was used during a daily meeting that the interim administrator David Richardson has celebrated every day entitled Problem Resolution of the Hurricane Preparation Complex. In other words, exactly what the head of an emergency management agency should be doing before the hurricane season. This is just another example of a long line of internal leaks of people who clearly could not worry less about the Americans and prefer Manufacture of the sections of his own self -aggravated.
In his first meeting of all the hands last week, Richardson told employees not to get in his way when he tries to achieve the president’s objectives, a source told ABC News.
“Do not get in my way if those 20% of people are,” employees told Friday morning last Friday, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting. “I know all the tricks.”
“Oldlocation. Delay. Minimum. If you are one of those 20% of people and believe that those tactics and techniques will help you, they will not because I will run directly on you,” he said, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting. “I will achieve the president’s intention. I am so determined to achieve the president’s intention to ensure my duty when I took my Marines to Iraq.”
The moral in FEMA has sunk since Noem said he was going to eliminate the agency, according to sources within the agency.
Noem was pressured during a camera panel on Wednesday on whether he has a plan to eliminate FEMA. She said she didn’t have a plan, but said the White House would present a plan.
“There is no formalized final plan on how this works, because the contribution of Congress is of vital importance,” Bennie Thompson told representative.
CNN first reported the internal review document.
