He had seen the maps, the models, the red zones where storms, fires, and floods would collide with communities that had nothing left to lose. As acting FEMA chief, Cameron Hamilton knew what it meant to cut disaster aid: it meant slower rescues, longer waits, and more body bags. So when he was pressed, behind closed doors, to bless a plan to hollow out his own agency, he chose to answer as a public servant instead of a political appointee.

Refusing to call FEMA “obsolete” cost him his title, his office, and his future in Washington. Within hours, loyalists rewrote the narrative, blaming “Biden-era failures” and migrant hotel spending while they quietly consolidated control. Hamilton left with a cardboard box and a clean conscience, fully aware of the warning his firing sent: if the next storm hits harder, it won’t be because no one saw it coming. It will be because someone who did was told to leave.