"Derrick Hiebert had planned to stick it out at FEMA. He was an assistant administrator working on hazard mitigation-he specialized in getting communities prepared for disasters-and like many emergency-management experts I've spoken with, he thinks that the American approach to administering disasters needed an overhaul, even a radical one. The systems had gotten "clunky over time," he said. Something needed to change. So Hiebert was open to seeing how President Donald Trump might change it."
"Some FEMA leaders had been fired, and contract renewals for a substantial number of his on-the-ground employees were in jeopardy. Doing his job would only get harder, if not impossible, he thought. Hiebert also found out his wife was expecting twins. They already had two children, and suddenly the risk that his own role or perhaps his whole agency could be erased at any time looked more personally threatening. "If something happened and I were fired, with twins we would be destitute," he told me."
Derrick Hiebert planned to remain at FEMA as an assistant administrator focused on hazard mitigation but left after policy and personnel disruptions under the Trump administration. A major grant program that funded resilient infrastructure was canceled and some FEMA leaders were fired, while contract renewals for many field employees were threatened; a judge later temporarily blocked fund reallocation. Hiebert learned his wife was expecting twins and sought job security, accepting a better-paying disaster-contracting role at AECOM. Many states lack emergency-management capacity, so private contractors and former federal employees will likely fill gaps if federal involvement diminishes.
Read at The Atlantic
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