This Storm Is Exactly What You'd Expect In A Warming World; BTW, How Will FEMA Respond (Assuming It Can)?
A sprawling winter storm that left hundreds of thousands without power, grounded thousands of flights and disrupted travel across the eastern half of the U.S. could be the first real test of the second Trump administration’s Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The president has said that he wants to eliminate FEMA, and the agency has lost thousands of employees since his second term began. Emergency-management experts have braced for the moment that a weakened FEMA would face a multi-state disaster. “We’ve been lucky, really, over the last year,” said Alan Gerard, a retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist who now writes the newsletter Balanced Weather. “We didn’t have any landfalling hurricanes. We haven’t really had a wide-ranging natural disaster-type situation in the last several months.”
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The Trump administration’s cuts to FEMA come at the same time that climate change is making large-scale weather disasters more likely and more intense, even as the president continues to question the basics of climate science. On Friday, Trump posted on social media about the storm and cold snap, asking followers, “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???” In fact, scientists say, global warming has reshaped the atmospheric engine in ways that can make winter storms and extreme cold outbreaks more disruptive than ever. Rapid Arctic warming and melting, stronger and more intense ocean heat waves, increased atmospheric moisture and more frequent disruptions of the stratospheric polar vortex are all factors “contributing to the extreme winter weather unfolding across the U.S. this week,” Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist and senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, said via email.
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The Trump administration laid off or forced out more than 2,000 FEMA employees in 2025 and had planned to end the contracts for thousands more this year until Thursday, when the agency paused that effort amid preparation for the winter storm. More than 300 CORE, or Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees, had already been let go by that point. CORE workers are critical at FEMA, said Michael Coen, a former chief of staff at the agency. “These employees are usually the first boots on the ground,” he said. The agency has struggled with leadership turnover and the departure of experienced senior staff; FEMA has cycled through three directors in the past year. The agency’s current leader, Karen Evans, lacks relevant experience, Coen said.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26012026/a-winter-storm-fueled-by-global-warming-tests-u-s-disaster-response/
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