Workers say president’s attacks on the agency and lack of qualified leadership could lead to deadly catastrophe
Workers say president’s attacks on the agency and lack of qualified leadership could lead to deadly catastrophe
Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) risk exposing the US to another Hurricane Katrina, staff at the agency have warned Congress in a withering critique that also takes aim at its current leadership.
Writing in the run up to this week’s 20th anniversary of the devastating 2005 storm that killed 1,833 people and caused widespread destruction in New Orleans and the Gulf coast, more than 180 current and former Fema employees say the Trump administration’s policies are ignoring the mistakes that led to it.
The letter, sent to members of Congress and a council formed to examine the agency’s future, follows months of criticism of Fema from Trump and senior administration officials, who have threatened to close it, prompting more than 2,000 staff – about one-third of its permanent workforce – to depart, leaving it short of institutional expertise in key positions.
It comes after last month’s deadly flooding in Texas that left at least 135 – including 37 school children – dead. Experts said the death toll may have been inflated by the upheaval at Fema, claiming it diminished its capacity to respond quickly.
The letter, entitled The Katrina Declaration, accused the Trump administration of disregarding the Post-Katrina Emergency Reform Act (PKERMA), passed in 2006 with the intention of absorbing the lessons of the disaster.
“Hurricane Katrina was not just a natural disaster, but a man-made one,” the signatories wrote.
“The inexperience of senior leaders and the profound failure by the federal government to deliver timely, unified, and effective aid to those in need left survivors to fend for themselves.
“Two decades later, Fema is enacting processes and leadership structures that echo the conditions PKERMA was designed to prevent.
