20 Years After Katrina, FEMA Weakened as Risks Grow

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. The response after landfall failed across governments, magnifying harm in communities already facing the greatest risks. It also made clear that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other disaster-response agencies needed fundamental reform, like strengthening FEMA’s authority and investing in pre-disaster mitigation. 

Two decades later, both FEMA staff and advocates warn that the Trump administration's hollowing out the agency will leave the country dangerously unprepared.

The following is a comment from Adelle Thomas, senior director of adaptation at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“When you look at the footage of Katrina, it seems like so long ago. You think that couldn’t happen today, but the reality is that we are in a much worse position than we were 20 years ago. If a storm like Hurricane Katrina hit now, however, we would see the same or worse impacts than we saw then.

“While the risks of stronger storms grow because of climate change, the Trump administration is hobbling the federal government’s ability to respond. Its weakening of FEMA poses risks to Americans from coast to coast.”

For background information, please see:

• Memo: 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned and the Dismantling of Disaster Response
  This memo covers the need for stronger FEMA, flood-safe standards, and pre-disaster mitigation that keep people out of harm’s way, and how many of those hard-won protections—20 years after Katrina—are being dismantled as disasters and risks intensify.
• Podcast: What the Earth podcast, 20 years of Lessons at Risk
  NRDC’s Adelle Thomas reflects on how Katrina and its aftermath affected Louisiana—including her own family—what it revealed about federal disaster response, and how it led her to a career in climate adaptation focused on the most vulnerable.

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd).