Unfixable FEMA puts the ‘disaster' into ‘disaster recovery'
We thought reform was possible. We were wrong.
We were brought to Puerto Rico to fix FEMA's broken disaster recovery processes after Hurricane Maria struck in 2017. Our team of seven Lean Six Sigma experts — decorated military officers and retired executives — had more than 150 years of combined experience in process improvement across 60 organizations in more than 20 countries, including war zones.
FEMA was the only organization our team unanimously deemed unfixable — not because the mission was complex, but because of its toxic mix of incompetence, lack of accountability, and calcified dysfunction.
FEMA's three-part mission was extremely simple: assess damage, calculate costs, release funds. Yet two years after Hurricane Maria, only 5 percent to 8 percent of cost estimates had been completed. Recovery had stalled.
And instead of admitting failure, FEMA inflated $1.5 billion in project estimates to mislead Congress.
At FEMA's Joint Recovery Office near San Juan — with 2,000 to 3,000 staff — the public Wi-Fi password had to be changed because so many employees were streaming Netflix. Damage assessments were routinely fabricated. 'It's easier,' one staffer told us. When we reported it, investigators asked, 'Did anyone take the money?' We said no. They lost interest.
It got worse. FEMA approved leasing $46 million in pumps that could have been bought for $4 million. A whistleblower who reported this later died under suspicious circumstances — his body was cremated without an autopsy, despite requests for a forensic review.
FEMA's response? Nothing.
At the core was FEMA's unique DEI mandate: 80 percent of positions had to be filled locally, regardless of qualifications. Only 25 percent of residents were fluent in English, and fewer than one-third held college degrees. This created a woeful mismatch between mission needs and personnel.
The federal coordinating officer had told us, 'I wish I had retired execs who just want to do the right thing.' We recruited just such a team, but we were then sidelined during our time in Puerto Rico from July 2018 to June 2019, largely due to discrimination.
Merit was irrelevant. FEMA handed its critical improvement program to a young woman who epitomized quota-driven hiring. Enrolled in law school, she unabashedly prioritized classes over work, failed our Lean Six Sigma training, tried to steal test material, and colluded with the prime contractor to dilute requirements. We reported her, but she was protected.
We faced relentless discrimination for being 'the straight old white guys.' Some managers mocked us in Spanish. FEMA's Equal Employment Opportunity office 'lost' our complaints five times. The lead counselor was fired the day before the investigation was set to begin. Discrimination was later confirmed by FEMA's Office of Professional Responsibility, but the findings were suppressed for six years. When we filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the report, FEMA redacted it entirely — including the page numbers.
We brought our findings to Congress and the Inspector General but were ignored. Freedom of Information requests were stonewalled. FEMA's Freedom of Information office withheld records — even from Congress. That's not incompetence — it's obstruction.
After exhausting every avenue — facing retaliation, smear campaigns, and sabotage — we filed lawsuits. Seven are now active, three of them naming FEMA. They were filed just before the statutes of limitations expired, only because FEMA's Whistleblower Protection Unit, Equal Employment Opportunity office, and Freedom of Information teams delayed resolution for years.
Legal costs now exceed $700,000 — and we haven't even set foot in court yet. The strategy is attrition: Bury the truth in paperwork and delay.
It is now 2025, and Puerto Rico's recovery remains incomplete. Its power grid is fragile. Two near-total blackouts in six months confirmed what we already knew: FEMA failed — and still is failing.
In a real national emergency, FEMA will not be the answer. U.S. Northern Command, the National Guard, the Defense Logistics Agency, and hardened continuity-of-government military sites like Cheyenne Mountain and Raven Rock are the real backstops — not FEMA bureaucrats.
Even in routine disasters, FEMA doesn't do the heavy lifting during the response. That falls to the Army Corps of Engineers, local EMS, and the Red Cross. In recovery, FEMA behaves like a bloated, poorly run insurance company — slow to pay, hostile to oversight, and incapable of learning.
We have kept fighting because this isn't about FEMA's image. It is about lives. Americans are being failed by a $33 billion bureaucracy that delivers PowerPoints instead of progress.
FEMA doesn't go to where the work happens, embrace problems, or fix them. Rather, it hides failures, punishes dissent, and rewards mediocrity. In FEMA's culture, the nail that sticks up doesn't just get hammered back down — it gets audited, reassigned, or made to disappear. It embodies the very things the Lean Six Sigma management approach was intended to eliminate — overburden, waste, and unevenness.
If FEMA were a company, it would be bankrupt. If a military unit, it would be relieved of command. Instead, it limps along—propped up by Cold War nostalgia and D.C. inertia.
President Trump has spoken of dismantling it. He cannot do it soon enough.
He should devolve emergency operations to the states via block grants. Let the military handle large-scale logistics. Bring back transparency, urgency, and accountability.
It can't happen overnight, of course, but it must begin. States must be gradually and strategically weaned — both operationally and financially — from FEMA's central role in disaster recovery. This phased approach should prioritize high-aid, high-frequency states, based on disaster frequency and severity.
States facing similar risks should form regional pacts to share resources and coordinate surge response. This starts with honest assessments of each state's disaster history, capacity, and capability gaps. It includes inventories of personnel, materiel, and clearly defined responsibilities. States should formalize mutual-aid agreements to offset localized shortfalls. And FEMA reservists should be retained in a modified form to provide flexible, rapid-deployment surge staffing when disasters exceed state capacity.
We used to joke that if you sent FEMA managers out to get you a Big Mac and a Coke, they'd come back with a kitten, a pincushion, a harmonica — and not a single receipt.
When the next real emergency hits, FEMA won't save anyone. Americans deserve better than the bureaucratic cosplay we witnessed when we tried in vain to fix. It is not ending FEMA, but continuing to fund FEMA that is radical.
Barry Angeline, a retired business executive, led the FEMA Lean Six Sigma effort in Puerto Rico. Col. Dan McCabe (U.S. Army, Ret.), two-time Bronze Star recipient, served as a senior consultant for FEMA Lean Six Sigma in Puerto Rico. Both are federal whistleblowers.
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