ANNISTON, Ala. — It’s the disaster she didn’t see coming. Aileen Reneau, 30, had worked at the Federal Emergency Management Agency for less than a year, helping to train first responders at FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness, the only such facility in the country.
She was also deployed to North Carolina for six weeks after Hurricane Helene. The Air Force veteran and mother of two was laid off on Presidents Day. “It hurts,” she said.
“It was a stab in the back.” Since Inauguration Day, more than 200 employees at FEMA have been cut — just 1% of the roughly 20,000 employees in the agency. Still, a report from the U.
S. Government Accountability Office found that FEMA had a 35% gap in necessary staffing in 2022, and a heavy workload was leading to burnout and retention issues. “We all know that these disasters are going to increase in frequency and in severity,” Reneau said.
“Climate change is real, and unfortunately, we already were understaffed, and now we are absolutely gutted.” A senior White House official said President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order soon that will be aimed at empowering state and local governments to handle disaster relief. Trump has previously said he wanted to give at least a percentage of federal money set aside for FEMA to states instead.
Reneau said she was blindsided when she learned she was being let go. She had glowing performance reviews, she said, yet her termination letter cited poor performance. She .
