FEMA chief was joking with hurricane season awareness remarks: DHS

The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was joking when he said he was not aware the U.S. had an official hurricane season, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which houses FEMA, said in a statement.

The response, delivered in a DHS statement, comes after Reuters reported that acting FEMA head David Richardson, who has been in the position since early May, baffled employees with the sentiment at a recent briefing.

The outlet said it was unclear to staff members whether the remark about the U.S. not having an official hurricane season was meant to be taken “literally, as a joke, or in some other context.”

“Despite meanspirited attempts to falsely frame a joke as policy, there is no uncertainty about what FEMA will be doing this Hurricane Season,” a spokesperson for the DHS said in a statement to The Hill.

“FEMA is laser focused on disaster response, and protecting the American people,” the spokesperson continued, adding that FEMA, under Richardson, is “activated in preparation for Hurricane Season.”

The Atlantic hurricane season officially started on June 1 and lasts until about Nov. 30. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is expecting an unusually heavy hurricane season this year, with six to 10 total hurricanes, including three to five major ones.

This year’s hurricane season is under particularly scrutiny given the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal government, from the National Weather Service to FEMA itself.

The report from Reuters prompted swift, concerned reactions from Democrats.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) responded to the Reuters report on Monday evening, writing on social platform X, “I’m unaware of why he hasn’t been fired yet.”

Others also weighed in.

“Trump’s FEMA chief is incompetent,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote on X in a reply to the article. “People will die.”

“Wait WHAT?! People are bracing for storms and this man just found out the weather exists?!” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said on X.

“This is what happens when you hire vibes over qualifications,” she added.

The previous acting FEMA administrator, Cameron Hamilton, was ousted from his position early last month after breaking with the Trump administration’s official position that the agency needed to be overhauled or shuttered.

Hamilton told lawmakers he did not think it was in the public’s interest to eliminate FEMA.

The DHS reiterated its vow to upgrade what it called a “bloated, DC-centric dead weight” to a “lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens.”

“The old processes are being replaced because they failed Americans in real emergencies for decades,” the DHS spokesperson wrote in the statement.

Updated at 10:04 a.m.