SAVANNAH, Ga. () — Federal workers have been dismissed from their jobs in waves across the country in the past several weeks, including in Coastal Georgia.

spoke with several of those workers from the Savannah area who have already lost their jobs or are living with the fear of that prospect every day.

“I was actually with some of the other archaeologists in our department that also got let go, and one of them was like hey you better check your work phone, I just got fired. This is at like 10:00 at night. So, it was after hours,” Joshua Herrin, a former archaeologist with the USDA, said. “So, I went and checked my work phone. Sure enough, I was let go also. None of our supervisors were CC’ed. There was no, ‘Hey, you know, you have 30 days to vacate.’ It was ‘Hey, this is your last day, you’re done working.'”

Herrin said he, along with almost his entire department, have been let go.

“It was also stated that our performance did not indicate the need to keep us in the position or something,” he said. “All of us have glowing performance reviews. None of us have a negative performance review. So, that was nonsense.”

Abrupt firings like Herrin’s are keeping those who are still employed on edge as well.

“You kind of don’t know what to expect from day to day,” Sonya Schunior, a current employee at the DHA, said. “Things change from day to day. Even from the start of the day to the end of the day, you may get several emails that say three different things from three different supposed agencies. It drives your anxiety, anxiety-driven.”

Some are scared to even talk about their situation without the fear of being next.

“It has been put out not just within my agency, but with other agencies as well that I’ve seen…make sure you’re not speaking out, make sure that you’re not saying anything negative about the organization, that you are not giving any information,” an anonymous federal employee with the Veteran’s Administration, said. “So, they’re really trying to keep us quiet.”

Those spoke with all said they can empathize with cutting wasteful spending, but if or when their positions are cut, there will be serious ripple effects.

“You see a loss of occupational safety,” Schunior said. “When you’re dealing with things like jets and fighter jets, even something like putting an ordinance on the jets. You want to make sure that those guys are following regulations. You want to make sure they’re safely doing their job.”

Herrin posed the simple question, “When did we become the enemy?”

“It’s park rangers, archaeologists, scientists, biologists, so many people that deal with things that protect our national forests, protect our national parks, protect our environment,” he said. “When those regulations go away and there’s just free reign to gut our national parks, public green spaces, we can’t really go back.”