The new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office says the widespread reductions have resulted in a loss of institutional knowledge and experienced personnel.

Shifting federal responsibilities onto that uneven base, the Union of Concerned Scientists argued, amounts to an unfunded mandate that would leave rural and lower-resourced states—and the disaster survivors in them—furthest behind.

The deeper alarm, for Udvardy, is that FEMA thinned its ranks without first analyzing what it needed. “There’s simply no excuse for having any staff changes to a federal agency that’s tasked with reducing the loss of life and property from all hazards when it’s not based on strong analytics,” she said.