With hurricane season kicking off this month, Richardson told staff Monday that the agency would be returning to the same guidance for hurricane response as last year. Some were confused how that would be possible, given the agency had already eliminated key programs and sharply cut its workforce.

For example, FEMA’s hurricane guidance typically includes plans for staffers who go door-to-door helping storm survivors. But that program has been rolled back, leaving it unclear how the agency should now adjust those operations, which could have a domino effect on other responses.

Richardson told FEMA staff in a Monday call that he didn’t want to create a new plan that might contradict what a newly created FEMA review council, co-chaired by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, might propose.

“Here’s the guidance,” Richardson said, according to participants. “It’s the same as it was last year,” he added.

The new FEMA leader suggested he recently learned there was an annual hurricane season, stunning members of the workforce of the agency tasked with responding to disasters. He has expressed surprise in meetings at the scope of the agency’s mission, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

“Yesterday, as everybody knows, [was the] first day of hurricane season,” Richardson said. “I didn’t realize it was a season.”

Hurricane season lasts from June 1 through the end of November. 

“Despite meanspirited attempts to falsely frame a joke as policy, there is no uncertainty about what FEMA will be doing this Hurricane Season,” said a FEMA representative, adding, “FEMA is laser focused on disaster response, and protecting the American people.”

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The agency has been plagued by a wave of high-level departures. MaryAnn Tierney, until recently the acting No. 2 official at FEMA, resigned in late May, stating in a message to staff, “Everyone has a line, and I have reached mine.”  

Tierney, a longtimer at FEMA who served as regional administrator for the FEMA area that includes states such as Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland, told staff that she was leaving because “the current approach lacks a clear end state or plan and has been done recklessly without regard to our current statutory or moral obligations to the American people,” according to a copy of the message seen by the Journal. She also called the staff shake-ups traumatizing for the workforce.

FEMA’s leadership has been trying to balance pressure from the White House to make significant changes toward diminishing the agency’s role, while also making sure there is an adequate-level of response to disasters, staffers say.

President Trump and top White House officials have accused FEMA of failing to adequately respond to disasters. They argue states could do a better job of administering disaster relief money. The president said at a fundraiser last year that he believed the private sector could rebuild more cheaply after hurricanes.

Under recent scrutiny, including from GOP lawmakers, the agency approved several pending disaster declarations for states and extended employment for more than 2,000 staffers whose contracts were expected to end. The agency also reinstated training for state and local officials that had been paused for months.

There have also been some discussions about bringing back programs that work on disaster-mitigation efforts in communities and the one that sends FEMA staffers to go door-to-door to help survivors in disaster areas, following concern from lawmakers from both parties about dismantling them, according to some staffers. 

Richardson, who took over the agency in early May, admitted in a series of recent meetings that he was still developing a hurricane response plan weeks before the start of the season, causing concern among FEMA employees about whether the agency is prepared for a major storm. He has said the agency has struggled to put together a disaster-response plan amid uncertainty over Trump’s intentions for FEMA. 

Richardson told staff in a mid-May address that he expected to complete the new plan by May 23 and then provide it to Noem. In recent weeks, he has said it was 85% complete, according to participants.

FEMA employees have said the agency is months behind schedule in its preparations for the hurricane season, which is expected to have above-normal activity.

The agency has separately been working on a bigger plan that would call for a new approach to hurricane response tactics that would advance the president’s goal of transferring more responsibility for responding to major disasters from the White House to the states. Those changes are in response to a Jan. 24 executive order signed by Trump that established the FEMA review council. 

Several top FEMA officials have departed the agency in recent weeks, as Richardson has brought on staff from the Department of Homeland Security, according to personnel announcement emails sent to agency employees. Those DHS officials, many of whom don’t have emergency-management experience, have been largely in charge of crafting the agency’s new approach, according to people familiar with the matter. 

During a May meeting, Richardson said the agency needs to break its goals into various tasks, which he explained using fruit metaphors.

“Some of those tasks will be kind of orange-like tasks,” he said, according to a video recording of the meeting viewed by the Journal. “And by orange, I mean the fruit orange, but they might be tangerines, they might be blood oranges, it might just be a little bit grapefruity, all those will go in one bin.”

Write to Scott Patterson at scott.patterson@wsj.com and Tarini Parti at tarini.parti@wsj.com

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The agency has been plagued by a wave of high-level departures. MaryAnn Tierney, until recently the acting No. 2 official at FEMA, resigned in late May, stating in a message to staff, “Everyone has a line, and I have reached mine.”  

Tierney, a longtimer at FEMA who served as regional administrator for the FEMA area that includes states such as Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland, told staff that she was leaving because “the current approach lacks a clear end state or plan and has been done recklessly without regard to our current statutory or moral obligations to the American people,” according to a copy of the message seen by the Journal. She also called the staff shake-ups traumatizing for the workforce.

FEMA’s leadership has been trying to balance pressure from the White House to make significant changes toward diminishing the agency’s role, while also making sure there is an adequate-level of response to disasters, staffers say.

President Trump and top White House officials have accused FEMA of failing to adequately respond to disasters. They argue states could do a better job of administering disaster relief money. The president said at a fundraiser last year that he believed the private sector could rebuild more cheaply after hurricanes.

Under recent scrutiny, including from GOP lawmakers, the agency approved several pending disaster declarations for states and extended employment for more than 2,000 staffers whose contracts were expected to end. The agency also reinstated training for state and local officials that had been paused for months.

There have also been some discussions about bringing back programs that work on disaster-mitigation efforts in communities and the one that sends FEMA staffers to go door-to-door to help survivors in disaster areas, following concern from lawmakers from both parties about dismantling them, according to some staffers. 

Richardson, who took over the agency in early May, admitted in a series of recent meetings that he was still developing a hurricane response plan weeks before the start of the season, causing concern among FEMA employees about whether the agency is prepared for a major storm. He has said the agency has struggled to put together a disaster-response plan amid uncertainty over Trump’s intentions for FEMA. 

Richardson told staff in a mid-May address that he expected to complete the new plan by May 23 and then provide it to Noem. In recent weeks, he has said it was 85% complete, according to participants.

FEMA employees have said the agency is months behind schedule in its preparations for the hurricane season, which is expected to have above-normal activity.

The agency has separately been working on a bigger plan that would call for a new approach to hurricane response tactics that would advance the president’s goal of transferring more responsibility for responding to major disasters from the White House to the states. Those changes are in response to a Jan. 24 executive order signed by Trump that established the FEMA review council. 

Several top FEMA officials have departed the agency in recent weeks, as Richardson has brought on staff from the Department of Homeland Security, according to personnel announcement emails sent to agency employees. Those DHS officials, many of whom don’t have emergency-management experience, have been largely in charge of crafting the agency’s new approach, according to people familiar with the matter. 

During a May meeting, Richardson said the agency needs to break its goals into various tasks, which he explained using fruit metaphors.

“Some of those tasks will be kind of orange-like tasks,” he said, according to a video recording of the meeting viewed by the Journal. “And by orange, I mean the fruit orange, but they might be tangerines, they might be blood oranges, it might just be a little bit grapefruity, all those will go in one bin.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5732791&forum_id=2],#48982573)