The Federal Emergency Management Agency isn’t just broken, it’s dangerous. The ossified bureaucracy can’t manage routine disasters without self-asphyxiating in red tape. In Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria, only 5%-8% of work was completed by the October 2019 deadline. It’s still not finished. Repeated blackouts expose the island’s fragility and FEMA as a soft underbelly in continuity-of-government. The Maria recovery is the clearest case of FEMA’s failure to deliver its “new” capabilities at scale. This wasn’t just failure, it was institutional malpractice.
We exposed that failure in a prior Washington Examiner piece, “FEMA’s DEI problem,” which detailed how identity politics supplanted merit and gutted disaster response effectiveness. In the second installment, “FEMA’s DEI misadventure,” we explained how FEMA leadership weaponized DEI to retaliate against whistleblowers and block reform. Our third article, “FEMA’s reverse discrimination cover-up,” laid out the bureaucratic sabotage that followed and the institutional culture that enabled it.
Now, we offer a way forward.
We went to Puerto Rico to fix FEMA’s broken recovery. Our Lean Six Sigma team, composed of decorated officers and executives, brought over 150 years of process improvement experience across more than 60 organizations worldwide, including war zones. FEMA was the only organization we deemed unfixable, not due to mission complexity but due to a toxic stew of dysfunction and aversion to accountability.
We uncovered nearly $2 billion in malfeasance, including a $1.5 billion scheme to inflate progress and mislead lawmakers. Ignored by Congress and the inspector general, FEMA retaliated.
FEMA stood firm on self-preservation. It colluded with prime contractor ATCS to abruptly terminate our program. They recklessly deleted the Digital Site Inspection tool, which would have saved $70 million and 500,000 man-hours, shaving years off the recovery.
Investigations were delayed, FOIA requests stonewalled, Equal Employment Opportunity complaints buried. FEMA units, including the Whistleblower Protection Unit and the Contracting Office, which colluded with ATCS to hide Antideficiency Act violations and whistleblower retaliation, held no one accountable. Retaliation and obstruction are hardwired into FEMA’s DNA.
FEMA’s Puerto Rico Federal Coordinating Officer, a former ATCS partner, was fired for unrelated misconduct and escorted from the Joint Recovery Office. Beltway revolving doors insulate malefactors from accountability.
Because FEMA won’t police itself, seven lawsuits are now active. ATCS is being sued for retaliation and fraud in the inducement. A qui tam case is being explored with the Justice Department. We are preparing a formal debarment petition. FEMA faces lawsuits for discrimination and knowingly violating the Antideficiency Act.
Besides this ecosystem that avoids accountability, FEMA’s Soviet-style central planning collides with box-checking DEI, strangling adaptability. It’s the middleman in a drug deal, adding no value and slowing relief.
States outperform federal bureaucracy: Louisiana delivered $1.2 billion in Katrina aid six months faster than FEMA; California’s prevention programs cut wildfire costs by 40%, outperforming FEMA’s reactive approach; Illinois provided $45 million when FEMA stalled after the 2013 tornado; and Colorado funded National Guard flood response during the 2013 federal shutdown.
The Disaster Recovery Reform Act allocates 15% of disaster payouts, about 6% of FEMA’s budget, to state resilience efforts, while FEMA wastes 38% of its budget on overhead. When states prove they can deliver results faster and cheaper, why does Washington still spend nearly four times more on bureaucracy than on prevention?
During a response, local responders, National Guard units, the Army Corps of Engineers, and nonprofit organizations such as the Red Cross do the heavy lifting, not FEMA. During a recovery, FEMA functions as an insurance company: assessing damages, determining costs, and cutting checks.
The National Institute of Building Sciences confirms the return on investment: Every $1 invested in mitigation saves $4–$6, and seismic retrofits yield $7–$10. As Rocky Balboa put it, “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” That’s resiliency.
Disasters cost $160 billion annually, yet FEMA’s $20 billion-$30 billion response remains a day late and a dollar short, consistently behind the crisis curve. This failed system demands a smarter framework, including four response tiers calibrated to disaster risk:
• High-frequency, high-cost → Surge capacity
• High-frequency, low-cost → Regional response
• Low-frequency, high-cost → Catastrophic backup
• Low-frequency, low-cost → Basic preparedness
Each tier needs a plan. Regional alliances are critical. Gulf Coast states could form a hurricane bloc, western states align on wildfires, and Midwest states coordinate on floods. Shared resources let states support each other without Washington’s delays.
Decentralization must begin. States need a road map before FEMA’s next debacle. Without better-aligned federal incentives, the moral hazard that FEMA’s bailouts have created by rewarding poor preparation and chronic underinvestment will persist. Other nations have already solved the problems that confront us, and their approaches prove that better outcomes are possible.
To break the cycle, we propose global models that work: Japan’s cost-sharing system, New Zealand’s public-private insurance, Mexico’s catastrophe bonds, the Netherlands’s flood controls, and Chile’s building codes, which saved thousands in 2010, all demonstrate practical solutions that deliver.
These models show that resilience can be quantified, funded, and achieved. The path forward rests on three pillars:
Decentralize power to states
- Transfer authority to states
- Replace FEMA bureaucracy with regional compacts — hurricane, wildfire, and flood pacts
- Reward preparedness via sliding-scale federal matches tied to readiness
- Use block grants to bypass FEMA’s reimbursement maze
Replace bureaucracy with market incentives
- Mandate performance-based contracts — firms get paid only if systems hold
- Use catastrophe bonds to shift disaster risk to markets
- Implement parametric insurance for automatic payouts
Modernize response infrastructure
- Automate damage assessments with AI
- Track funding via blockchain for transparency
- Maintain a lean federal surge force
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson recognize that the agency’s mission must fundamentally change. A smart transition must replace it, one that preserves lean federal surge capacity as states take the lead. Richardson’s “forcing function” to increase state contributions will drive resilience. This isn’t reform — it’s controlled demolition. Support can’t be cut cold turkey. States must be weaned off FEMA while building capacity for peak disaster periods, such as hurricane season.
States can partner with engineering and tech firms under performance-based models, leveraging AI, drones, and predictive analytics. FEMA’s role must contract to a node for sharing best practices and coordinating multistate catastrophes, not micromanaging recoveries. FEMA reserves, weakened by 30% attrition, must be reimagined as a rapid-response force. The goal is speed and results, not bureaucratic oversight. States must be allowed to move at warp speed, not FEMA’s glacial pace.
Across three op-eds, we’ve made the case. Now, with FEMA set to be phased out after hurricane season, this final installment offers the only serious road map.
Barry Angeline is a retired executive with more than 30 years of experience leading process improvement at General Electric, Sun Microsystems, Time Warner, the Marine Corps, and the Army. He holds multiple patents, has published on performance management, and led FEMA’s Lean Six Sigma deployment in Puerto Rico. Federal whistleblower.
Retired Army Col. Dan McCabe earned two Bronze Stars as an armor officer during Operation Iraqi Freedom. After retiring, he worked with senior U.S. and Iraqi officials and the State Department to transfer U.S. security training to the Iraqi government. He served as a senior consultant on FEMA’s Lean Six Sigma mission in Puerto Rico. Federal whistleblower.