Washington — Inside FEMA Headquarters' National Response Coordination Center, as a hypothetical Category 2 hurricane bore down near Creole, Louisiana, maps of the storm glowed on television screens. Staff announcements rang out on a PA system. Emergency managers leaned over laptops and traded updates in sidebars. FEMA staff, the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, the Department of Interior, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and state and local coordinators sat in rows — a whole disaster response ecosystem rehearsing days before the 2026 hurricane season begins on June 1.But the exercise, dubbed "Silent Echo," unfolded at a moment when FEMA itself is being tested.The agency, which is emerging from a bruising government shutdown while dealing with wildfires and the FIFA World Cup, now also faces a Trump-appointed review council's proposal to redesign the federal government's role in disaster response.Bob Fenton, FEMA's acting administrator, stands in the middle of it all.Is FEMA ready for hurricane season?"I'm here," Fenton said when asked about fears that FEMA has been hollowed out. "And I have over three decades of experience."Fenton is not FEMA's last man standing, but the career emergency manager and longtime Region 9 administrator is the only FEMA regional director to remain in place through the Biden administration and the second Trump administration. Over the years, he has coordinated DHS Operations Allies Welcome, helped lead FEMA's COVID-19 response and worked on disaster recovery on every scale. He recently returned from ongoing recovery efforts in Guam and the Mariana Islands, following the landfall of a Category 4-equivalent super typhoon.