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FEMA: Come back, workers! We didn’t mean it! [1]

['View Profile', 'A Pagan In Arizona', 'Greg Dworkin', 'Eric Yonce']

Date: 2026-05-01  

Welp… this is not surprising- FEMA just realized they are understaffed for hurricane season and the world cup.

NYT: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is reversing job cuts that Kristi Noem made as homeland security secretary before she was fired last month. The agency said staff members who had been let go or placed on administrative leave were now needed to prepare for hurricanes and the World Cup…. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/05/01/us/trump-news#fema-job-cuts-reverse

I can only imagine what workers must feel right now – yearning to get back to jobs where they know they were helping, and utter frustration with the chaos-agents who are minions of the Orange One. Tough choice, unless one has been totally unemployed ever since. In that case, chaos would at least pay the bills.

FEMA has reinstated 14 people who had signed a public letter that became known as the Katrina Declaration, which warned that the agency risked repeating mistakes learned during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said Abby McIlraith, one of the reinstated workers and an emergency management specialist. Another 21 people who signed their names are no longer at the agency, Ms. McIlraith said. The agency has also begun calling disaster workers who were let go in January to offer them their jobs back, according to two people familiar with the actions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the move publicly. The agency parted ways with some 200 workers who served in temporary roles when their assignments came up for renewal in January. It was a major departure from past practices, and prompted unions to file a lawsuit against the agency, arguing that the dismissals violated FEMA’s statutory requirement to maintain readiness for disasters….

I’m still very rough at the updated diary process, and I’m also preparing to head to a protest. One errand fell through, aso I thought I’d grab this news while waiting… but wont’ be around to comment. I’m sure staff will pick up the news and run with it soon.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/5/1/800031363/community/fema-come-back-workers-we-didnt-mean-it/

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