According to a September 2 from the Government Accountability Office, “Recent disasters, such as Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which affected the southeast less than two weeks apart in 2024, as well as federal workforce reductions and challenges highlight concerns over federal disaster workforce readiness.”

In fact, the report went on, “As we have previously reported, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—the lead agency for federal disaster response—has long-standing workforce management issues that make supporting response and recovery difficult. For example, following Helene and Milton, only 4 percent of FEMA’s incident management workforce—the agency’s primary field support for disasters—was available to deploy as of November 1, 2024.”

Clearly, this is placing an ever-growing burden on state and local governments, and Smart Cities Dive, a digital publication, explored that issue in a recent interview with the GAO report’s author, Chris Currie, who is a director with GAO’s Homeland Security and Justice Team.

“The biggest concern we’re hearing from states and localities right now is that they don’t want to be trying to figure out what support they’re going to get and what they’ll have to provide,” he was quoted as saying. “The concern we have is that you can’t pull the rug out from people quickly and expect them to be ready to respond without federal support.”

In this important article, Currie, offered five recommendations that localities should be taking now to prepare for the next hurricane, tornado or wildfire, with less support from the federal government:

• “Take inventory of all the federal resources your city relies on.”

• Be proactive about hardening buildings and infrastructure.

• Make resilience and disaster preparation a citywide priority.

• Bring finance and budget departments into all emergency management conversations.

• Advocate for your city with the state.

That last item in the list is particularly provocative. As Currie told Smart Cities Dive, “Don’t rely on the state to prepare for you. Be proactive.”

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