Coal and gas outbursts (hereinafter referred to as 'outbursts') result in serious damage and often occur in tectonically-deformed coal that is rich in gas. It has been demonstrated that the level of outburst risk declines with increasing coal moisture content. Moreover, an outburst generally lasts for mere tens of seconds and the required energy is mainly provided by the gas expansion energy. However, the gas desorption and energy release characteristics of tectonically deformed coal with different moisture contents during the first dozen seconds have not often been studied. In this study, a set of self-designed gas desorption equipment was used to carry out gas adsorption-desorption experiments in the first dozen seconds (about 13 s) on coal with different moisture contents. The results show that the drop rate of the gas pressure increases with an increase in coal moisture content, and the total amount of gas desorption and the mass flow rate of gas desorption reduce correspondingly in the gas desorption process. Moreover, the gas velocity also slows with increasing moisture content. Under different gas pressures, the total gas expansion energy (TGEE) and the total gas energy (TGE) released from the coal decrease with the increasing moisture content. Correspondingly, it takes a shorter time for coal to release 90% of the TGEE and the TGE. For all of the coal samples, the time taken for releasing 90% of the TGEE is shorter than that for releasing 90% of the TGE. Meanwhile, the ratio of TGEE in the TGE increases with the increasing moisture content. The TGEE accounts for 14-16% of the TGE released from coal samples of different moisture contents under different gas pressures.