When President Joe Biden nominated Deanne Criswell to serve as the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2021, she received a unanimous confirmation, a rare gesture of bipartisan support from the bitterly divided U.S. Senate. A longtime firefighter who served overseas in the Colorado Air National Guard, Criswell also had decades of emergency management experience not just with FEMA, but in local emergency response leadership roles in Colorado and New York City.
Criswell knew how the system worked at FEMA, but her mandate was to change the status quo at an agency that is often accused of acting too slowly after disasters — and of being far too slow to adapt to climate change. In her three years leading the agency, she has attempted to overhaul FEMA’s disaster aid programs, overseen billions of dollars in new spending on forward-looking adaptation projects, and navigated tough disputes over the rising cost of insurance and reconstruction in vulnerable areas. Her goal was not just to ensure that FEMA ran well during disasters but also to shift the agency’s culture, making it more responsive ... Read more
