“We don’t know if FEMA is prepared,” U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R- Baton Rouge, said Friday. “There are vacancies and staff turnover in the same leadership positions, including multiple changes at the director level. Additionally, there was distrust of its mission by the President and the first Secretary of Homeland Security. We have to hope after the poor response to the flooding in Texas that they understand America needs a prepared and mission-focused FEMA.”
“Hurricane Season starts Monday,” said U.S. Rep. Troy Carter Sr., D-New Orleans, also noting massive layoffs at FEMA and the lack of a full-time leader. “Right now, we are at-risk of weakening FEMA and leaving Louisiana communities even more exposed when the next storm hits. That is unacceptable.”
The National Hurricane Center expects fewer storms — eight to 14 — for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season than the 14 named storms that are usual. One to three could become a hurricane. But the waters of the Atlantic Ocean are unusually warm, which could mean a large hurricane with catastrophic winds and high storm surges is possible.
At least two of these weather events could come ashore in Louisiana.
What Louisiana’s preparations look like
“We’re prepared and we’ll always be prepared,” Friloux said.
Generally, local and parish emergency managers, coordinated by GOHSEP, handle evacuations and power outages and the initial response when a storm comes ashore. FEMA comes in a few days later with search and rescue help, then with financial aid to help house the homeless, pay contractors to remove debris and reopen roads, as well as providing immediate needs such as diapers, food and clothing.
Louisiana already has prepositioned 390,528 meals ready to eat, enough for three days, and 693,252 16-ounce containers of water, Mahfouz said. In addition, 702,400 sandbags and 97,389 tarps are on hand.
The forward staging area is Esler Field, Alexandria’s regional airport run by the Louisiana National Guard .
GOHSEP staged statewide exercises from April 14 to April 16, which included 414 participants from 38 agencies in 29 parishes, Mahfouz said.
Turmoil at FEMA
FEMA is facing questions about how quickly the agency can respond following a year of job cuts, funding uncertainty, and President Donald Trump repeatedly saying the agency should be eliminated.
Since Trump took office in January 2025 for a second term, FEMA eliminated more than 5,000 employees, leaving just 12% of personnel to deploy for disasters to assist survivors and handle operations and recovery work.
“FEMA Region 6 has no permanent regional administrator, and the people of Louisiana are among those most at risk because of it,” U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, said Friday, referring to the FEMA administrative office that oversees Louisiana disasters. “As one former FEMA official said, the agency is losing decades of institutional knowledge at the most critical time. For families in this district, that loss creates a real possibility of slower response times, delayed delivery of critical resources, and a federal government that is simply not ready when people need it most.”
That direction recently changed with the March 24 appointment of Markwayne Mullin to replace Kristi Noem as the head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, said Mark Cooper, the Baton Rouge consultant who was a member of the task force appointed by Trump to take a deep dive into FEMA operations.
“They’re certainly better prepared than they were last year,” Cooper said.
For one thing, FEMA has started bringing back staffers who left the agency last year. About 200 have been rehired, so far, according to the agency’s website.
As a Republican senator from Oklahoma, Mullin backed a fundamental reorganization of the agency — rather than elimination — that would address the cost concerns by shifting much of the federal government’s responsibilities to the states. The FEMA Reform Council in May recommended changes in FEMA protocols that would deliver money to the states faster.
Those suggestions are still a couple of years from being fully implemented, if accepted by Trump.
In the past couple of weeks, Trump nominated Cameron Hamilton to lead FEMA. He still must be confirmed by the Senate . And Mullin named Bob Fenton, another member of the president’s council, as the agency’s chief administrator.
Fenton had been a FEMA regional director with whom Cooper had worked when he headed GOSHEP under Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal and was chief of staff to Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards .
“These actions that FEMA has taken since Markwayne Mullin came aboard tells you that they’re taking this hurricane season seriously,” Cooper added.
“Oh, we’re ready for hurricane season,” Fenton told CBS News Wednesday. “This is something we do every year. It’s in our DNA.”
CBS was covering a drill inside FEMA Headquarters’ National Response Coordination Center. FEMA staff, as well as officials from other federal agencies, like the Department of Interior, and private organizations such as the American Red Cross, rehearsed what they would be called upon to do during a hurricane.
The practice scenario involved a hypothetical Category 2 hurricane coming ashore near the Cameron Parish community of Creole , according to CBS .
FEMA did not attend a conference earlier this year because its funding was shut off over a dispute about funding aggressive enforcement of immigration laws. Homeland Security also oversees the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement .
But FEMA is organizing a face-to-face meeting beginning June 8 with emergency management directors from hurricane-prone states, according to Victoria L. Barton, a FEMA associate administrator.
Usually, the conferences are done electronically. This time, FEMA officials and the directors are meeting in person to discuss preparedness and responses.
© 2026 The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
