Sources inside FEMA tell Reuters that the United States’ hurricane season, which runs for six months from June 1st to November 30th, the one type of natural disaster for which the agency spent more than half of all response expenditures from 1992 through 2022, is an unfamiliar concept to David Richardson, the new chief after Cameron Hamilton was canned for being too pro-FEMA.
“It was not clear to staff whether he meant it literally, as a joke, or in some other context,” Reuters writes of the reaction in the room to Richardson’s remarks. It’s not clear why FEMA staff then didn’t then test that out by asking Richardson what the plans are for dealing with an eruption of Mt Vernon in Virginia, which is showing signs of activity after being dormant since 1973, mitigating the forest fire risk to the Las Vegas Strip, or supplying snow shovels to Honolulu in case of another blizzard.