2026-05-27T18:14:00-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
华盛顿讯——在联邦紧急事务管理局总部的国家响应协调中心内，一场模拟二级飓风逼近路易斯安那州克里奥尔的演习正在进行，电视屏幕上闪烁着风暴路径图。公共广播系统中不断传出工作人员通告，应急管理人员俯身查看笔记本电脑，在侧边栏交流最新动态。
联邦紧急事务管理局工作人员、救世军、美国红十字会、内政部、国民警卫队、海岸警卫队以及州和地方协调员分列就座——整个灾害响应体系在2026年飓风季（6月1日开启）前数日进行演练。
但这场被命名为“无声回响”的演习开展之际，联邦紧急事务管理局自身正经受考验。
该机构刚摆脱一场艰难的政府停摆，同时还在应对野火和国际足联世界杯相关事务，如今又面临特朗普任命的审查委员会提出的重新设计联邦政府在灾害响应中角色的提案。
鲍勃·芬顿是联邦紧急事务管理局代理局长，身处这一切的中心。
联邦紧急事务管理局为飓风季做好准备了吗？
当被问及人们担忧联邦紧急事务管理局人员被掏空的问题时，芬顿说：“我就在这里。”“我拥有超过30年的应急管理经验。”
芬顿并非联邦紧急事务管理局仅剩的元老，但这位职业应急管理人员、长期担任第九区管理员，是唯一一位在拜登政府和第二届特朗普政府任期内留任的联邦紧急事务管理局地区主管。多年来，他协调过国土安全部的“欢迎盟友行动”，协助领导联邦紧急事务管理局的新冠疫情应对工作，并参与过各级别的灾后恢复工作。不久前，他刚从四级超强台风登陆后的关岛和北马里亚纳群岛的持续恢复工作中返回。
如今他正努力向全国保证，联邦紧急事务管理局已准备就绪。
“哦，我们已经为飓风季做好了准备，”芬顿在接受哥伦比亚广播公司新闻独家采访时表示，“这是我们每年都要做的事，已经刻进了我们的DNA。”他一边说，一边示意身后忙碌的工作人员。
但他的信心也附带了提醒，即州和地方政府需要在灾后恢复中发挥主导作用。
众议院国土安全委员会民主党人5月14日的一封信函警告称，自2025年1月以来，联邦紧急事务管理局已流失超过5000名员工，其38个最高领导职位中有近一半空缺。
去年，美国政府问责局单独发布报告发现，联邦紧急事务管理局在2025年飓风季开始时，仅有12%的事件管理工作人员在岗。这些人员可被部署到活跃的灾害现场，或派往响应行动中协调联邦支持、协助幸存者或开展后勤、规划、行动和恢复工作。他们目前正在支持全国范围内超过91起重大灾害和紧急事件的宣告工作。
但芬顿表示，目前的人员数量状况有所改善。
“我们目前已有超过30%的灾害救援人员处于待命状态，”他说，“正常情况下的人员可用率在30%至40%之间。”他估计，另有30%的联邦紧急事务管理局工作人员已被部署，还有30%的人员正在接受培训、获取资质、休假或以其他方式分配任务。
“我对我们目前的状态感到放心，”芬顿说，“我们这里有一支经验非常丰富的团队。”
“我们正在迎头赶上”
不过，芬顿承认该机构正从 disruption 中恢复。
“停摆对我们造成了重大影响，”他在谈及国土安全部部分停摆事件时表示，“任何时候你关闭70多天，今年又关闭40多天——今年总计超过100天——都会产生影响。”
联邦紧急事务管理局的灾害救济基金也出现短缺，触发了“即时需求资金”机制——这一财务红线将支出限制在紧急、救生需求范围内。哥伦比亚广播公司新闻4月报道称，灾害救济基金余额已降至30亿美元以下，迫使联邦紧急事务管理局在飓风季来临前几周限制支出。
“我们正在迎头赶上，”芬顿承认，“但我们在这里的迎头赶上速度相当快。”
他表示，在获得国会拨款后，联邦紧急事务管理局目前正在为过往灾害拨付资金，并重启因延迟而暂停的准备工作。
“停摆影响了我们的备灾能力，”芬顿谈到停摆事件时说，“这也会影响整个国家的备灾能力——无论是个人、州和地方政府，还是我们的团队。”
芬顿表示，在过去一年里，联邦紧急事务管理局仍培训了超过100万名州和地方人员，但他承认该机构损失了时间、差旅和面对面协调的机会。
“我们需要在所有层面弥补这一点，”他说，“包括私营部门和非营利组织。”
补充人员队伍
联邦紧急事务管理局正致力于重建其工作人员队伍，该机构最近已召回约200名被解雇的灾害响应员工，并表示正在采取措施在2026年飓风季和国际足联世界杯前稳定人员配置。
最近的法庭证词显示，国土安全部此前曾下令联邦紧急事务管理局制定裁员多达50%的计划。芬顿没有直接表示该计划已被放弃，但他强调联邦紧急事务管理局目前正在招聘。
“我们的部长非常关心我们的使命，关心我们的工作人员，并授予我们启动招聘流程的权力，”他说，“我们现在正在积极招聘。”
人员问题不仅关乎人数，还关乎经验——那种能让应急管理人员知道该联系谁、该调动什么资源、哪些州系统脆弱、哪些地方官员可能已经不堪重负的制度性知识。
芬顿对员工传达的信息很简单：相信。
“我在这里的第一次全员会议上，用了歌曲《只要相信》，”他说，并解释他是从旧金山巨人队的比赛中借鉴了这个想法，“我希望这里的每个人不仅相信我们的使命——他们确实如此——还要相信领导层。”
飓风季来临前的另一个担忧是HURREVAC系统，这是一款免费的基于网络的飓风疏散规划工具，被全国范围内的地方应急管理人员用于跟踪灾害风险、定制报告和规划疏散时间表。5月14日的国会信函敦促联邦紧急事务管理局和国土安全部恢复HURREVAC合同，因为续签工作陷入停滞，可能会在飓风季来临前影响该工具的使用。
“我认为HURREVAC系统今年已经准备就绪，”当被问及该平台是否已正常运行时，芬顿说道。联邦紧急事务管理局将于周一与美国国家海洋和大气管理局、国家气象局和国家飓风中心一起在演习中测试该系统。
“我们将向地方和州政府提供我们所能提供的最佳信息，以帮助他们做出最佳决策，”他说。
世界杯：“不知道接下来会发生什么”
联邦紧急事务管理局的飓风准备工作与该机构面临的另一项重大考验同步展开：国际足联世界杯，这需要在全国各城市投入大量安全和应急管理资源。
芬顿告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，停摆事件推迟了向筹备赛事的州和地方政府拨付的数百万美元拨款，其中包括用于培训、设备和反无人机技术的资金。
“我们已经拨付了近9亿美元的拨款，”他说，具体金额约为8.75亿美元，“但没错，由于停摆，拨款被推迟了。”
这位代理局长表示，联邦紧急事务管理局目前已与州和地方合作伙伴在赛事场地部署了团队，但他承认，与飓风季的重叠凸显了联邦紧急事务管理局面临的更大挑战。飓风不会等到野火季结束才来袭。危险品事件可能会在联邦紧急事务管理局为世界杯做准备的同一个周末发生。地震毫无预警。洪水如今正侵袭远离海岸的社区。
“不知道接下来会发生什么，”芬顿说，“我们需要为所有类型的灾害做好准备。”
新冠疫情拨款和遗留灾害问题
联邦紧急事务管理局仍在处理新冠疫情响应报销的积压工作。去年，美国县协会报告称，有110亿美元的延迟报销款项流向45个州，涉及新冠疫情期间的应急成本。最近，联邦紧急事务管理局已宣布批准数十亿美元的新报销款项。
芬顿表示，该机构目前已完成超过90%的新冠疫情资金发放工作，但他未给出剩余资金的具体金额。“仍有一些决定需要做出，”他说，“还有一些工作我们仍在推进。”
芬顿表示，自国土安全部拨款停摆结束以来，联邦紧急事务管理局最近已发放了近50亿美元的灾害和新冠疫情资金，并指出灾害响应的影响是累积性的。仍在等待某一灾害报销的社区，为下一次灾害垫付资金的能力可能会减弱。在新冠疫情期间投入巨资的县、医院和州，如今也面临着为洪水、飓风、野火和极端高温做准备的需求。
“灾害代价高昂，”芬顿说。
在北卡罗来纳州飓风海伦灾后的恢复工作中，对联邦紧急事务管理局的不满呈现出不同的形式：不是担心该机构不会到场，而是担心它行动不够迅速。
当被问及社区从看似不是百年一遇而是千年一遇的洪水中恢复的问题时，芬顿承认联邦紧急事务管理局存在官僚主义问题。
“多年来，联邦紧急事务管理局内部形成了官僚主义，”他说，“其中一些是通过强加给我们的立法产生的，一些是通过我们制定的政策产生的。”
他补充道，国土安全部部长马克韦恩·穆林废除了前部长克里斯蒂·诺姆制定的一项先前政策，该政策要求对超过10万美元的合同和拨款进行审查，这将有助于加快办事速度。
联邦紧急事务管理局试点人工智能在个人援助中的应用
芬顿表示，联邦紧急事务管理局开始使用人工智能，包括在其个人援助项目中——该系统帮助灾害幸存者申请援助。
他说，目前联邦紧急事务管理局工作人员不得不翻阅“大量文件”来回答幸存者的问题。人工智能有可能帮助联邦紧急事务管理局工作人员快速检索信息、支持自动呼叫并改进拨款工作。芬顿表示，联邦紧急事务管理局目前正在开展试点项目，希望在今年秋季末之前在个人援助项目中开始使用人工智能。
“这是一个已有20多年历史的系统，将进行现代化改造并开始利用人工智能，”他补充道。
当被问及隐私问题时，芬顿表示，联邦紧急事务管理局不会使用公共工具处理幸存者的数据。
“我们的人工智能是国土安全部内部的人工智能系统，”他说，“我们不会走向互联网。”
其前景是提供更快的服务。风险在于，往往处于最脆弱状态的灾害幸存者，能否信任一个处于转型期的联邦机构在不损害隐私、准确性或可及性的前提下实现现代化。
洪水保险与联邦紧急事务管理局援助的局限性
联邦紧急事务管理局的未来
本月早些时候，联邦紧急事务管理局审查委员会的最终报告建议将更多责任转移给州和地方政府。
“有一种误解，认为当你遭受灾害袭击时，联邦紧急事务管理局会让你一切恢复如初，”芬顿说。
他补充道，联邦紧急事务管理局的拨款旨在满足即时需求：提供庇护、临时住房，帮助人们进入安全卫生的环境。他表示，过去五年的平均个人援助金约为6000美元。
“保护自己的最佳方式是购买保险，”芬顿说。他指出，洪水保险通常需要30天才能生效，“如果你想为今年的飓风季做准备，现在就可以去办理。”
芬顿还警告美国人，不要将联邦紧急事务管理局的援助与保险混为一谈。审查委员会的调查结果还建议将美国人的洪水保险从联邦管理的国家洪水保险计划转向私人市场。国家洪水保险计划目前仅授权至2026年9月30日，除非国会再次采取行动。
“我认为有一个趋势，即确保各州得到支持，并承担更多管理这些事件的责任，”芬顿说，“这将随着时间的推移逐步实现，不会一蹴而就。”
当被问及州长们是否应该担心联邦紧急事务管理局不会像过去那样到场时，芬顿直截了当地回答：
“看看我身后，”他说，“我们就在这里。我们正在培训，正在为下一次事件做准备。”
Top FEMA official Bob Fenton says “we’re ready for hurricane season”
2026-05-27T18:14:00-0400 / CBS News
Washington— Inside FEMA Headquarters’ National Response Coordination Center, as a hypothetical Category 2 hurricane bore down near Creole, Louisiana, maps of the storm glowed on television screens. Staff announcements rang out on a PA system. Emergency managers leaned over laptops and traded updates in sidebars.
FEMA staff, the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, the Department of Interior, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and state and local coordinators sat in rows — a whole disaster response ecosystem rehearsing days before the 2026 hurricane season begins on June 1.
But the exercise, dubbed “Silent Echo,” unfolded at a moment when FEMA itself is being tested.
The agency, which is emerging from a bruising government shutdown while dealing with wildfires and the FIFA World Cup, now also faces a Trump-appointed review council’s proposal to redesign the federal government’s role in disaster response.
Bob Fenton, FEMA’s acting administrator, stands in the middle of it all.
Is FEMA ready for hurricane season?
“I’m here,” Fenton said when asked about fears that FEMA has been hollowed out. “And I have over three decades of experience.”
Fenton is not FEMA’s last man standing, but the career emergency manager and longtime Region 9 administrator is the only FEMA regional director to remain in place through the Biden administration and the second Trump administration. Over the years, he has coordinated DHS Operations Allies Welcome, helped lead FEMA’s COVID-19 response and worked on disaster recovery on every scale. He recently returned from ongoing recovery efforts in Guam and the Mariana Islands, following the landfall of a Category 4-equivalent super typhoon.
Now he is trying to reassure the country that FEMA is ready.
“Oh, we’re ready for hurricane season,” Fenton told CBS News in an exclusive interview. “This is something we do every year. It’s in our DNA,” he said, gesturing to the personnel busy behind him.
But his confidence came with caveats about the need for state and local governments to take the lead on recovery.
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.
Last year, the Government Accountability Office separately found that FEMA began the 2025 hurricane season with just 12% of its incident management workforce available. These are the personnel who can be deployed to active disasters or sent to staff response operations to coordinate federal support, assist survivors or carry out logistics, planning, operations and recovery work. They are currently supporting more than 91 major disaster and emergency declarations around the country.
But Fenton said the numbers are healthier now.
“We have a little bit over 30% of our disaster workforce ready right now,” he said. “Between 30 and 40% is normal availability.” He estimated that another 30% of FEMA workers have been deployed, with another 30% in training, credentialing, on leave or otherwise assigned.
“I’m comfortable with where we’re at,” Fenton said. “We have a very experienced staff here.”
“We are playing catch-up”
Still, Fenton acknowledged the agency is recovering from disruption.
“The lapse had a significant impact on us,” he said, referring to the record DHS partial government shutdown. “Any time that you’re closed for 70-something days and then 40-something days this year — over 100 days in total this year — it has an impact.”
FEMA also ran low on its Disaster Relief Fund, triggering Immediate Needs Funding — a financial red zone that limits spending to urgent, lifesaving needs. CBS News reported in April that the DRF dropped below $3 billion, forcing FEMA to restrict spending just weeks before hurricane season.
“We are playing catch-up,” Fenton conceded. “But we play catch-up pretty quick here.”
He said FEMA is now pushing out funding for past disasters after receiving money from Congress and restarting preparedness work that had been delayed.
“It impacts our readiness ability,” Fenton said of the shutdown, “which translates to the readiness of the nation — whether that’s the individual or that state and local government, or whether that’s our team.”
Fenton said FEMA still trained more than a million state and local personnel over the last year, but admitted that the agency lost time, travel and face-to-face coordination.
“We need to catch up from that at all levels,” he said, “including the private sector and nonprofits.”
Refilling the ranks
FEMA is on a mission to rebuild its workforce, after the agency recently moved to bring back roughly 200 disaster response employees who had been let go, saying it was taking steps to “stabilize” its personnel ahead of the 2026 hurricane season and the FIFA World Cup.
Recent court depositions indicate DHS had previously ordered FEMA to develop plans to cut as much as 50% of its personnel. Fenton did not directly say that plan is dead, but he emphasized that FEMA is now hiring.
“We have a secretary that very much cares about our mission, cares about our workforce, and has given us authority to start the hiring process,” he said. “We are aggressively hiring right now.”
The workforce question is not just about headcount. It is about experience — the kind of institutional knowledge that helps emergency managers know who to call, what to move, which state systems are brittle and which local officials may already be overwhelmed.
Fenton’s message to employees was simple: believe.
“My first all-hands meeting here, I used the song ‘Just Believe,’” he said, explaining that he borrowed the idea from San Francisco Giants games. “I want everyone here to believe not only in our mission, which they do, but believe in leadership.”
Another concern heading into hurricane season is HURREVAC, the free, web-based hurricane evacuation planning tool used by local emergency managers nationwide to track hazards, tailor reports and plan evacuation timelines. The May 14 congressional letter urged FEMA and DHS to restore the HURREVAC contract after a stalled renewal jeopardized access to the tool ahead of hurricane season.
“The HURREVAC system, I think, is ready to go this year,” Fenton said, when pressed on whether the platform is up and running. FEMA will test the system during an exercise with NOAA, the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center on Monday.
“We’re going to give the best information we can to local and state governments to enable them to make the best decisions,” he said.
FIFA: “It’s not knowing what comes next”
FEMA’s hurricane preparations are unfolding alongside another major test for the agency: the FIFA World Cup, which demands enormous security and emergency management resources in cities nationwide.
Fenton told CBS News that the shutdown delayed millions in grant funding to state and local governments preparing for the games, including for training, equipment and counter-drone technology.
“We’ve almost pushed out almost $900 million in grants,” he said, putting the figure at roughly $875 million. “But you’re right. Because of the lapse, it was delayed.”
The acting administrator said FEMA now has teams out at venue sites with state and local partners, but acknowledged that the overlap with hurricane season illustrates FEMA’s larger challenge. Hurricanes won’t wait for wildfire season to end. A hazmat event can happen the same weekend FEMA is preparing for the World Cup. Earthquakes give no warning. Floods now cut through communities far from the coast.
“It’s not knowing what’s coming next,” Fenton said. “We need to prepare for all hazards here.”
COVID bills and leftover disasters
FEMA is still working through a backlog of COVID-19 response reimbursements. Last year, the National Association of Counties reported roughly $11 billion in delayed reimbursements to 45 states, tied to COVID-era emergency costs. More recently, FEMA has announced billions in new reimbursement approvals.
Fenton said the agency is now “more than 90%” through COVID funding, though he did not give an exact remaining dollar amount. “There’s still some decisions to be made,” he said. “There’s some work we’re still going through.”
Fenton said FEMA had recently put out “almost $5 billion” in disaster and COVID funding since the DHS funding lapse ended, noting that disaster response impact is cumulative. Communities still waiting on reimbursement from one emergency risk having less capacity to front costs for the next. Counties, hospitals and states that spent heavily during COVID are also now facing the need to prepare for floods, hurricanes, wildfires and extreme heat.
“Disasters are expensive,” Fenton said.
In post-hurricane Helene North Carolina, frustration with FEMA takes a different form: not in the shape of uncertainty over whether the agency will show up, but whether it can move fast enough.
Asked about communities recovering from what feel less like 100-year floods than 1,000-year floods, Fenton acknowledged FEMA’s red tape.
“There is bureaucracy over the years that’s been built in FEMA,” he said. “Some of that is through legislation that’s been put on us. Some of that is through policies that we’ve put in place.”
He added that DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s decision to rescind a prior DHS policy requiring review of contracts and grants over $100,000 put in place by former Secretary Kristi Noem should help move things faster.
FEMA piloting AI use for individual assistance
Fenton said FEMA is beginning to use artificial intelligence, including in its Individual Assistance program — the system that helps survivors apply for aid after disasters.
Right now, he said, FEMA workers have to search through “tons of documents” to answer survivor questions. AI offers the possibility of helping FEMA staff quickly retrieve information, support automated calls and improve grant work. Fenton said FEMA is running pilot programs now and hopes to begin using AI in Individual Assistance by the end of the fall.
“It’s about a 20-something-year-old system that will be modernized and start to leverage AI,” he added.
Pressed about privacy, Fenton said FEMA would not be using public tools for survivor data.
“Our AI is a DHS internal AI system,” he said. “We’re not going out to the World Wide Web.”
The promise is faster service. The risk is whether disaster survivors — often at their most vulnerable — can trust a federal agency in transition to modernize without compromising privacy, accuracy or access.
Flood insurance and the limits of FEMA aid
Future of FEMA
Earlier this month, the FEMA Review Council’s final report recommended shifting more responsibility to states and local governments.
“There’s a misconception that FEMA is going to make you whole when you get hit by a disaster,” Fenton said.
FEMA grants, he added, are meant for immediate needs: sheltering, temporary housing, and help getting into safe and sanitary conditions. He said the average individual grant over the last five years has been about $6,000.
“The best way to protect yourself is insurance,” Fenton said. Flood insurance, Fenton noted, generally takes 30 days to become active. “Go ahead and do that now if you’re trying to do it for this season,” he said.
Fenton also warned Americans not to confuse FEMA assistance with insurance. The Review Council also recommended in its findings to transfer Americans’ flood insurance coverage from the federally managed National Flood Insurance Program toward the private market. The NFIP is currently authorized only through Sept. 30, 2026, unless Congress acts again.
“I think there’s a move to ensure states are supported and take on more of the responsibility for managing these events,” Fenton said. “That will happen over time. It’s not an immediate turn of the light switch.”
Asked whether governors should worry FEMA might not show up in the same way it has in the past, Fenton was direct.
“Look behind me,” he said. “We are here. We are training. We are preparing for the next event.”
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