Deanne Criswell

Deanne Bennett Criswell is an American emergency management officer who served as the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 2021 to 2025. Criswell is the first woman to lead FEMA. She was previously the commissioner of the New York City Emergency Management Office.

Criswell attended elementary school in Free Soil, Michigan and graduated in 1984 from Catholic Central High School in Manistee, Michigan. She then earned a Bachelor of Science in technology education from Colorado State University, a Master of Public Administration from the University of Colorado Denver, and a Master of Arts in homeland security from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Criswell served as a member of the Colorado Air National Guard with the 140th Wing and was deployed to Kuwait directly after the September 11, 2001, attacks. She also worked as a firefighter for 21 years. Criswell managed the Office of Emergency Management for the city of Aurora, Colorado. She later worked in the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Barack Obama administration before becoming the commissioner of the New York City Emergency Management department in 2019.

Her nomination to be the next FEMA administrator was submitted to the United States Senate on February 22, 2021. She was confirmed unanimously on April 22, 2021, by voice vote, and was sworn in by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on April 26, 2021.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, Criswell has been accused of abusing her power to deliberately deny relief to disaster victims who were political supporters of President-elect Donald Trump. The attorney general of Florida is suing Criswell and other FEMA employees, some of whom have claimed this discrimination is widespread in the agency.