New Sabotaging Our Safety Scorecard Exposes FEMA In Complete Chaos

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, ahead of Donald Trump’s FEMA Review Council releasing their so-called “FEMA Readiness Report,” Sabotaging our Safety released a new scorecard with the real review of Trump’s FEMA finding complete chaos and an agency that isn’t ready for disaster season’s start next month. 

The comprehensive FEMA Readiness Scorecard assesses Trump’s federal government's disaster response capacity across four critical dimensions – leadership, workforce, agency structure and strategic planning, and hurricane season preparations. 

The verdict? FEMA earns an F across every single category.

"Trump’s appointed panel wants to release their own report and pretend everything is fine, that FEMA can weather further cuts. Our scorecard shows exactly why it is not,” said Sabotaging Our Safety Advisory Council Member Davante Lewis. “With hurricane season weeks away, teleportation conspiracies are the least of FEMA's worries. FEMA is failing across every critical dimension—leadership, workforce, planning, preparedness. Slashing the workforce in half and putting the burden of disaster recovery on the states would not save money. It would cost lives."

The scorecard arrives at a moment of acute crisis. A leaked December 2025 draft report from Trump’s hand appointed review council proposed slashing FEMA's workforce in half and relocating many employees out of Washington, D.C. — changes that would further hollow out an agency that the Trump administration's own internal review described as simply "not ready."

The Trump administration has overseen mass firings of experienced disaster-response personnel, frozen or canceled critical pre-season contracts, and left key leadership positions vacant — including the Senate-confirmed Administrator's post, which has sat empty throughout the administration. Three of the top four FEMA leadership positions are currently unfilled. The region covering Texas and Louisiana has neither a regional administrator nor a deputy, weeks before the first storms of the season could make landfall.

"We are in very bad shape for hurricane season," an anonymous FEMA staffer recently told reporters.

SOS FEMA READINESS SCORECARD: FOUR CATEGORIES.

The SOS Readiness Scorecard grades FEMA across four critical dimensions, drawing on public records, federal filings, congressional testimony, and documented agency actions:

Leadership — F: FEMA has cycled through three heads of agency since January 2025, still with no Senate-confirmed administrator. Nearly half (47%) of all FEMA executive positions are vacant. The offices of Policy & Program Analysis and Resilience—the two most directly responsible for planning and preparedness—sit at 100% vacancy. The person now overseeing search-and-rescue and billions in disaster assistance is, by his own description, an opponent of FEMA's existence with no emergency management background.

Workforce — F: In January 2026, over 1,000 on-call disaster responders, roughly 10% of the deployable workforce, were terminated. On-call contracts, previously set at two to four years, were capped at 180 days, eliminating the continuity that enables effective response. More than 100 additional disaster response workers were involuntarily reassigned to immigration enforcement duties. When the 2025 season began, only 12% of field staff were available to deploy — the lowest on record. The administration is now desperately trying to call workers back, but it is too little, too late.

Agency Structure & Strategic Planning — F: FEMA's multi-year strategic plan was canceled ten days before last hurricane season. Nothing has replaced it. The BRIC mitigation grant program was shut down, fought back into existence through litigation, and reopened with a mid-season July deadline. No after-action reviews have been published for 2024 or 2025. Disaster declarations that unlock federal aid are taking longer and getting rejected more frequently.

Hurricane Season Preparations — F: For the first time in at least five years, FEMA did not attend the National Hurricane Conference — the gathering where roughly 1,800 state and local emergency managers coordinate ahead of storm season. No HURREVAC trainings have been announced; the contract for this critical evacuation planning tool nearly lapsed entirely in March. Annual Rehearsal of Concept drills — conducted every year since at least 2021 — have not been scheduled. FEMA's Center for Domestic Preparedness skipped its April Hurricane Theme Week for the first time since at least 2022

Read the full scorecard here. 

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