FEMA Under Fire: Katrina’s Ghost Haunts New Orleans as Trump-Era Cuts Draw Warnings of New Catastrophe
FEMA Under Fire: Katrina’s Ghost Haunts New Orleans as Trump-Era Cuts Draw Warnings of New Catastrophe
Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, sparking widespread criticism of the federal response, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is once again at the center of a brewing storm. This week, FEMA employees issued a stark warning to Congress: current Trump administration policies, including significant defunding and staff reductions, could lead to another catastrophe on the scale of Katrina.
The current administration’s approach to disaster aid has drawn sharp criticism from experts and former officials alike. Since re-entering the White House in January, President Trump has advocated for states to assume greater responsibility for disaster response, a stance that critics argue undermines FEMA’s crucial role. Reports indicate that an estimated one-third of FEMA’s workforce has been eliminated through layoffs and buyouts, and key programs have been defunded.
Darren McKinney, a resident of New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward who endured Katrina’s wrath two decades ago, vividly remembers the feeling of being abandoned. “You had to fend for yourself,” he recounted, reflecting on the lack of shelter and support. Today, as field operations director for lowernine.org, a non-profit aiding recovery, he fears the current cuts will leave communities even more vulnerable. “For people that don’t have money, without Fema, how you going to help them out?”
Disaster response experts, like Samantha Montano of Massachusetts Maritime Academy, express deep concern over the agency’s “backslide” to a pre-Katrina level of unpreparedness. The 2006 Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act was designed to strengthen FEMA, requiring administrators to have disaster management experience. However, the Trump administration’s January appointment of David Richardson, who reportedly lacks such experience and dismissed the concept of hurricane season as a “joke,” has raised alarms.
Former FEMA director Craig Fugate noted the parallels to the “brain drain” that plagued the agency before Katrina, when a focus on terrorism diverted resources and talent. Lt Gen Russel Honoré, who led the military response to Katrina, called the administration’s decision to reassign FEMA staff to immigration enforcement an “insult to injury.” These cuts threaten vital relationships between state and federal officials, potentially making disaster response less efficient when it’s most needed.
The implications are particularly dire for poor, climate-vulnerable states like Louisiana, which historically relies heavily on federal assistance. Advocacy groups, which stepped in to fill gaps after Katrina, are also feeling the pinch, with cuts to AmeriCorps and environmental justice grants impacting their ability to rebuild equitably. Despite these warnings, FEMA’s acting press secretary dismissed the criticisms, stating the administration is committed to cutting “red tape, inefficiency and outdated processes.”
As the nation marks the 20th anniversary of one of its most devastating natural disasters, the consensus among many on the ground, like Betina James of New Orleans’s Hollygrove neighborhood, is clear: “We want more support, more help, not for them to take all that help away.” The call is not to discard FEMA, but to fortify it against future crises, especially in an era of increasing climate-related disasters.
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