08/25/2025

Nearly 200 FEMA Employees Warn the Trump Administration is Eroding Disaster Preparedness

The letter was sent to government officials and Congress

Nearly 200 current and former staffers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) warned on Monday that recent changes the Trump Administration has made to the agency could lead to “not only another national catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina, but the effective dissolution of FEMA itself and the abandonment of the American people.”

In a letter to government officials and members of Congress, the staffers said that Hurricane Katrina—which made landfall along the Gulf Coast in 2005, killed nearly 2,000 people and left millions homeless— "was not just a natural disaster, but a man-made one" because of "the inexperience of senior leaders and the profound failure by the federal government to deliver timely, unified and effective aid to those in need."

The widely criticized preparation and response for the storm prompted Congress to pass safeguards to prevent similar failings in the future, the letter noted. But it said that, since January, FEMA has been operating under unqualified leaders who have made decisions that “erode the capacity of FEMA.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.