Employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency wrote to Congress on Monday warning that the Trump administration had reversed much of the progress made in disaster response and recovery since Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast two decades ago.
The letter to Congress, titled the “Katrina Declaration,” rebuked President Trump’s plan to drastically scale down FEMA and shift more responsibility for disaster response — and more costs — to the states. It came days before the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest and costliest storms to ever strike the United States.
“Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, and our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters compel us to warn Congress and the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration,” the FEMA employees wrote in the letter.
They added that they hoped their warnings would “come in time to prevent not only another national catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina, but the effective dissolution of FEMA itself and the abandonment of the American people such an event would represent.”
Representatives for FEMA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi caused an estimated 1,833 deaths and $161 billion in property damage and shook the country’s confidence in the government’s ability to handle disasters. President George W. Bush faced intense criticism for the slow federal response to Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans, leading to the resignation of Mr. Bush’s FEMA administrator, Michael D. Brown, and the passage of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act.
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The post FEMA Employees Warn That Trump Is Gutting Disaster Response appeared first on New York Times.
