How Trump’s Cuts to FEMA and NWS Are Leaving Communities Defenseless Against Extreme Weather Disasters

The federal government plays a crucial role in disaster, pre-disaster, and post-recovery for U.S. communities facing fossil-fueled climate disasters. Historically, these agencies have empowered citizens to avoid the worst impacts of extreme weather and rebuild in the aftermath. However, the Trump administration has been systematically dismantling agencies—slashing the jobs, budgets, infrastructure, and programs that give communities a fighting chance. Congress has also played a role, from cutting climate resilient funding for communities to defunding public broadcasting.

Protecting Americans and helping them weather these climate disasters is not a partisan issue in the eyes of the public; an Associated Press-NORC poll found that 80 percent of Republicans and 87 percent of Democrats believe the federal government should play a “major role” in providing disaster aid.

From the first signs of extreme weather to reconstructing a damaged home, the federal government provides three lines of defense before, during, and immediately after a fossil-fueled climate disaster, as well as a recovery safety net that Americans rely on to literally weather a storm. Weakening our defenses and leaving holes in this safety net forces families and communities to fend for themselves during the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

The first line of defense: Accurate forecasting

The National Weather Service (NWS) is the heartbeat of American disaster preparedness. Established in 1870, the NWS works 24/7 to issue forecasts and warnings that provide more than $100 billion in benefits to the American public—a tenfold return on the taxpayer investment.

The tools of the trade

The forecasting process relies on a comprehensive network of experts and technology to paint an accurate picture of unfolding weather, including:

• Surface stations: More than 900 official airport stations and other complementary weather observation stations provide 24/7 real-time data on temperature, wind, and precipitation collected at the surface level.
• Marine buoys: Managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), buoys track water temperature and wave heights in addition to some air temperature and atmospheric pressure measurements.
• Weather balloons: Launched twice daily from almost 100 locations, weather balloons collect atmospheric data such as temperature, humidity, wind, and atmospheric pressure up to about 100,000 feet—almost 20 miles high.
• Radar and satellites: A system of more than 150 radars allows meteorologists to see inside storms, while NASA-built weather satellites provide global monitoring, which is essential for tracking hurricanes before they reach radar range.
• Expert analysis: Trained meteorologists translate this raw data into weather forecasts, which can include “watches” and “warnings” that allow the public to shift plans, take shelter, or even evacuate in anticipation of an extreme weather event.

The impact of recent cuts

All weather tools require human expertise to manage data and innovate. However, reckless cuts are endangering this process. After last year’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts and buyouts, approximately 600 NWS workers left via firings or resignations. This will have severe consequences:

• Reduced operations: Some NWS offices no longer operate 24/7, while others have suspended or reduced specific operations, including twice-a-day weather balloon launches. Last month in Kansas, the NWS failed to launch three-fourths of the balloons typically sent aloft in the state. Other offices are unable to provide the experienced staff necessary to make the right high-pressure decisions needed—such as in March, when a deadly tornado hit a part of southern Michigan without the appropriate warning being issued.
• Loss of experience: Last year’s DOGE buyouts and early retirements pushed out senior experts with decades of regional knowledge—such as insights into specific monsoon patterns or coastal phenomena—that gave them a mental database algorithms often lack. While the NWS plans to hire 450 new employees, they cannot immediately replace the decades of institutional knowledge lost. Moreover, new meteorologist applicants are being asked to take a “loyalty test,” and the potentially long federal hiring process means many offices will remain understaffed during peak storm season.
• Terminated research: NOAA’s climate science research division and the 16 cooperative institutes that partner with it have been weakened in their ability to conduct the core science research on which many federal agencies depend. Last year, the Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System at Princeton lost all of its funding, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in Boulder, Colorado, has warned it may need to furlough half its staff if NOAA does not resume funding its grants. The NWS relies on the data, modeling, and research produced by NOAA and its research partners to help communities stay safe.
• Budget cuts: President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” slashed $200 million from NOAA’s weather forecasting and public alert programs, cut $50 million in grants on studying climate systems, and eliminated $150 million in funding to advance weather observation systems, modeling, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public.

Removing critical support for programs dedicated to research risks public safety and removes a key puzzle piece that helps improve the processes on which meteorologists rely. The months leading up to ex-typhoon Halong saw the elimination of balloon launches at several key locations in western and northern Alaska. Because of data gaps that inaccurately modeled Halong’s path and understaffed stations that lacked the personnel and operational capacity to provide continuous, real-time tracking updates, coastal communities in the storm’s path had very little time to prepare. One individual died and more than a thousand people were displaced.

The second line of defense: Communication and preparation

Once a threat is identified, the focus shifts to ensuring every American—regardless of location or income—receives the warning and knows how to evacuate.

The communication collaboration

Warnings only save lives when they reach people in time. In addition to an accurate forecast, protecting lives requires a coordinated emergency communications system that connects federal agencies, local broadcasters, and communities before danger arrives. This includes:

• Official warnings: Only the NWS has the authority to issue weather warnings, detailing specific threats—such as flash floods and tornadoes—as well as safety steps. To achieve this, it relies on a vast network of broadcasters, like phones or TVs, to reach the public.
• Public broadcasting network: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is the largest funding source for public radio, TV, and related online services, providing more than 70 percent of its funding to more than 1,500 public TV and radio stations. These stations utilize emergency communication programs, such as the Public Radio Satellite System and the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN), that serve as the backbone for emergency alerts in rural and Indigenous communities.
• Advanced warning systems: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and CPB partner to manage the Next Generation Warning System, replacing failing equipment to make public alerts faster and more reliable.

The impact of recent cuts

Every American receives alerts and warnings differently, and recent cuts are likely to inequitably affect different parts of the country. This will have wide-ranging impacts:

• The collapse of public broadcasting: Following a rescissions package that eliminated its budget, the CPB announced its closure. This is a devastating blow to rural and Indigenous communities, where public stations often provide the only reliable emergency alerts. For many such stations, CPB funding constitutes more than 50 percent of their revenue. Remote areas, including parts of Alaska and Tribal lands, are now at heightened risk of missing vital emergency alerts that were previously provided via public radio and TV.
• Technological and infrastructure breakdown: The Trump administration unilaterally withheld or clawed back more than $885 million in enacted funding—specifically targeting the Next Generation Warning System, along with the Shelter and Services Program (SSP) and Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP). With the CPB’s closure and the administration’s illegal impoundment of FEMA funding, the gap between a meteorologist seeing a threat and a citizen receiving an evacuation notice grows dangerously wide.
• Gaps in communication: During the Kerr County floods in Central Texas last summer, the NWS issued highly accurate technical forecasts, but the Austin/San Antonio office lacked a warning coordination meteorologist—a casualty of April 2025 DOGE retirement buyouts. This vacancy severely damaged the “last mile” communication needed to help local emergency managers execute timely evacuations.

The next phase of disaster response—getting lifesaving personnel, supplies, and coordination into overwhelmed communities—becomes even more urgent when warnings fail to reach people quickly or clearly.

The third line of defense: Rapid response and mobilization

When a disaster makes landfall, the Federal Emergency Management Agency becomes the lead federal coordinator, a role of immense scale. FEMA begins to move necessary resources into communities where state and local systems are overwhelmed.

FEMA’s operational reach

FEMA’s purpose is to provide the national scale, specialized expertise, and logistical capacity needed when disasters exceed what communities can manage on their own. This includes:

• Logistics: FEMA coordinates the acquisition, staging, and distribution of food, water, tarps, cots, blankets, generators, medical supplies, and other essentials. During Hurricane Sandy, the agency deployed 17,000 personnel and delivered 20 million liters of water and 16 million meals.
• Search and rescue: FEMA deploys Urban Search & Rescue task forces—which include physicians, engineers, canine teams, and hazardous-materials specialists—to support collapsed-structure rescues, swift-water operations, and wide-area searches.
• Stabilization: FEMA establishes points of distribution for essentials and disaster recovery centers for survivor registration; supports sheltering and temporary power; clears debris; restores transportation and communications lifelines; and helps communities regain basic services after disaster strikes.
• Federal coordination: FEMA synchronizes federal, state, local, Tribal, territorial, nonprofit, and private sector partners so that emergency medical support, power restoration, transportation, communications, sheltering, and supply delivery are coordinated instead of fragmented.

Impacts of recent cuts

Cuts to FEMA’s staffing, funding, outreach, and administrative capacity slow the federal response at the exact moment survivors need fast decisions, clear information, and visible help. These changes will have significant impacts:

• Disaster Relief Fund woes: Following a historic 76-day Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown that froze annual appropriations through the end of April 2026, FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund was drained to emergency levels. Though a late-hour spending bill replenished the fund and rejected further staffing cuts, the operational backlog will take months to clear.
• Overburdened staff: There has been an approximately 14 percent workforce reduction since January 2025. Understaffed and overburdened, FEMA personnel are currently attempting to manage a staggering backlog of more than 300,000 projects across 600 open disaster declarations.
• Reduced outreach: The cancellation of FEMA’s door-to-door assistance program would disproportionately harm the most vulnerable—rural residents, disabled people, older adults, low-income households, and families without internet access or reliable transportation.
• The helpline bottleneck: Red tape and the nonrenewal of call-center contracts have led to massive hold times. For instance, during the July 2025 Central Texas floods, thousands of calls to the FEMA helpline went unanswered.
• Slower lifesaving response: Fewer trained staff means slower deployment of federal personnel, equipment, supplies, and specialized rescue teams to communities facing flooding, power outages, damaged roads, and medical emergencies.
• Weaker emergency coordination: Cuts make it harder for FEMA to manage overlapping disasters, coordinate federal agencies, process resource requests, and prevent gaps between communities that need help at the same time.

States rely on FEMA preparedness grants to fund anywhere between 42 and 74 percent of their existing emergency management workforces. Only 16 states in the entire country even manage their own individual disaster assistance programs. No state can replicate FEMA’s ability to rapidly deploy functional teams, emergency supplies, generators, communications systems, medical support, and federal funding across multiple disaster sites. Passing more responsibility onto states leaves them with fewer tools when they need help most.

The final step: Recovery and rebuilding the safety net

The road to recovery is long and often takes years. After the immediate danger passes, survivors face the long and often confusing process of rebuilding their lives. Federal support and strong federal mitigation efforts help to lower future disaster losses, protect lives and property, and reduce the long-term burden on households, taxpayers, and local governments.

Survivor assistance and long-term recovery

While immediate repairs occur in the first three years, mitigation projects to prevent future damage can take over a decade. Such projects include:

• Inspections and approval: FEMA inspectors verify damages, assess whether a home is safe and functional, and determine whether survivors may qualify for assistance through federal programs.
• Direct recovery support: FEMA assistance can help cover home repair, rental assistance, temporary lodging, moving and storage, funeral costs, and other disaster-related needs.
• Rebuilding lives and communities: Long-term recovery can require debris removal, demolition, relocation, infrastructure repair, public housing support, utility restoration, new construction, and other steps that help families return home and communities function again.
• Mitigation: It is critical for FEMA to continue helping states, local governments, Tribes, and territories reduce future risk by strengthening infrastructure, improving flood protection, relocating vulnerable structures, and preparing homes, roads, utilities, and public facilities for worsening extreme weather.

Impacts of recent cuts

Cuts to disaster recovery and mitigation leave Americans in devastation for longer and make future disasters more dangerous and expensive:

• Future disasters become more costly: Weakening programs such as Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities means communities lose support for projects that could lower future disaster losses, protect lives and property, and reduce the long-term burden on households, taxpayers, and local governments.
• Costs are shifted onto families: Instead of the federal government helping fund resilient infrastructure, individual Americans are left to pay more for recurring damage, delayed repairs, debt, foreclosure risk, bankruptcy, or prolonged displacement.
• Recovery staff are pulled away from ongoing disasters: The lack of responder capacity means staff are frequently diverted from long-term recovery in one region to handle an immediate crisis somewhere else. In 2025, 75 percent of FEMA’s Region 3 responders had to be diverted from active recovery efforts for other disasters to assist in Virginia when Hurricane Helene struck.
• National readiness is severely weakened: With more than 700 major disasters and emergency declarations remaining open and actively receiving federal support, the Government Accountability Office has warned that spreading fewer staff across the country could reduce the effectiveness of federal disaster response and readiness for future disasters. That means slower recovery today and less capacity for the next storm, flood, wildfire, or extreme heat event.

Recent policy shifts

Policy shifts during the second Trump Administration are making it harder for some states to receive disaster funding. A March 2026 analysis showed that it’s three times harder for blue states to obtain disaster funding under Trump. And an internal FEMA memo from last year proposed aggressively raising the per-capita indicator (PCI) damage thresholds required for major disaster declarations. If enacted, this rule change would have shifted $41 billion in disaster costs directly to cash-strapped states and local governments. Roughly 70 percent of the disasters declared in 2024 would have been denied federal aid entirely under this proposal. Fortunately, after intense bipartisan pushback, a recent report from the FEMA Review Council pulled back from the aggressive proposal in the original memo to a recommendation of a more moderate increase, based on inflation.

These policy shifts leave communities with fewer resources after extreme weather disasters and force state and local governments to absorb costs they cannot realistically carry alone.

Conclusion

Climate change is making extreme weather disasters more frequent and intense. Federal agency infrastructure, budgets, and staff help communities through every step of weathering a storm—from accurate and timely forecasting, to effective warning systems, to rescuers on the ground within hours, to supporting the rebuilding of the ruins often left behind.

There is no other entity, public or private, that possesses the technology, capacity, or resources to help limit the harms that extreme weather disasters inflict on communities. Cuts to these agencies and programs have left families fending for themselves and rid American communities of a fighting chance against these fossil-fueled climate disasters and the health, economic, and environmental harms they bring.

The authors would like to thank the many individuals who shared their expertise or reviewed this article—in particular, Steve Bonitatibus, Lucero Marquez, Leo Banks, Frederick Bell, Doug Molof, and Audrey Juarez.