FEMA officials expect they will be drawn deeper into the effort to resettle Afghan refugees, in addition to the ongoing response to Covid-19, raging western wildfires and a hurricane that ravaged the Gulf Coast and flooded New York and New Jersey.
, adding another complex challenge to a crushing shower of disasters that has cascaded down on the beleaguered outfit over the last 18 months.recently tapped Bob Fenton, the agency's former acting administrator and head of its Region 9 office, to lead the Homeland Security department's resettlement task force. Fenton has begun to stock the task force with FEMA colleagues, and the agency — which isat the Virginia refugee processing center — is preparing to take on additional duties.
"FEMA is stretched thin, relying on an overworked workforce," said a second agency official who spoke on the condition of anonymity."We were not designed to be America's 9-1-1." In the past week, more than 1,100 of the agency's employees have been deployed to Louisiana and Mississippi since Ida made landfall,
"They’re adding numbers, but I don’t think they’re adding numbers of people with quality experience," said the first official.
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