Days before the 2026 hurricane season officially begins on June 1, FEMA staff ran a full-scale rehearsal exercise at the agency's National Response Coordination Center in Washington. Maps of a hypothetical Category 2 hurricane glowed on television screens as staff announcements rang out on a PA system and emergency managers leaned over laptops trading updates.
The exercise, called "Silent Echo," simulated a storm bearing down near Creole, Louisiana. It brought together FEMA staff, the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, the Department of Interior, the National Guard, the Coast Guard, and state and local coordinators. The rehearsal played out as the agency faces pressure from multiple directions, according to CBS News.
FEMA is emerging from a government shutdown while simultaneously dealing with wildfires and the FIFA World Cup. A Trump-appointed review council has also proposed redesigning the federal government's role in disaster response. Acting administrator Bob Fenton stood in the middle of the exercise and told CBS News that the agency is ready.
"Oh, we're ready for hurricane season," Fenton said in an exclusive interview. "This is something we do every year. It's in our DNA."
When asked specifically about fears that FEMA has been hollowed out, Fenton pointed to his own presence and experience. "I'm here," he said. "And I have over three decades of experience."
Fenton is the only FEMA regional director to remain in place through both the Biden administration and the second Trump administration. He has coordinated DHS Operations Allies Welcome, helped lead FEMA's COVID-19 response, and most recently returned from disaster recovery work in Guam and the Mariana Islands following the landfall of a Category 4-equivalent super typhoon.
His confidence came with caveats. A May 14 letter from House Homeland Security Committee Democrats warned that FEMA has lost more than 5,000 employees since January 2025 and that nearly half of FEMA's top 38 leadership positions are vacant. A separate Government Accountability Office report found that FEMA began the 2025 hurricane season with just 12% of its incident management workforce available.
Fenton said those numbers have improved. "We have a little bit over 30% of our disaster workforce ready right now," he said. "Between 30 and 40% is normal availability."
FEMA's incident management workforce can be deployed to active disasters or sent to staff response operations to coordinate federal support, assist survivors, and carry out logistics, planning, and recovery work. Those personnel are currently supporting more than 91 major disaster and emergency declarations around the country.
Fenton also said state and local governments need to take the lead on recovery, a caveat he repeated more than once during the interview.
