FEMA disbands membership of Katrina-era advisory panel

By Debra Kahn | 01/28/2025 06:22 AM EST

The move follows a Jan. 20 Department of Homeland Security directive to dissolve membership of all advisory committees.

A person leaves a Federal Emergency Management Agency recovery center.

A person leaves a Federal Emergency Management Agency recovery center in Asheville, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene. Makiya Seminera/AP

The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday dissolved the membership of an advisory council intended to guide the agency in responding to natural disasters around the country.

FEMA’s National Advisory Council, a group established after Hurricane Katrina to make broad recommendations on the agency’s work, disbanded its 40 members, according to a Friday letter from Rob Long, the council’s staff director.

The move coincided with President Donald Trump’s proposing Friday to shut down FEMA altogether. Long sent the letter just before 1 p.m. EST, as Trump was meeting with local officials in western North Carolina towns still recovering from September’s Hurricane Helene and hours before he traveled to Los Angeles to tour wildfire disaster sites.

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An email from Long accompanying Friday’s letter cited an Inauguration Day memo from Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman, an agency veteran, terminating current membership of all DHS advisory committees.

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