Unlearning the Lessons Twenty Years After Katrina

This week marked the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. FEMA employees wrote a letter to Congress warning that the Trump administration’s cuts to the agency and lack of qualified leadership at its top have created an environment in which the likelihood of repeating the failures involved in that devastating storm is much more likely. Forecasters predict that Gulf waters are currently conducive to rapid storm intensification. Yet, our ability to respond and recover is being sacrificed so that resources can be redirected to deporting immigrants.

This should be of particular concern to Floridians, especially in Manatee County, where we continue to recover from a devastating 2024 hurricane season, and our governor is following the president’s lead. Under Ron DeSantis’ direction, Florida committed around half a billion dollars to construct a moronic immigrant detention center in the Everglades, only to have two courts rule that it must be dismantled less than eight weeks later. The state planned to seek reimbursement from … you guessed it, FEMA, but whether the federal government will foot any of the bill following the court’s ruling remains unclear.

As of late July, the state had already signed vendor contracts worth $245 million to establish and operate the facility. The processing of shutting it down and removing its infrastructure is estimated to have an immediate cost of $15-20 million. The Florida Division of Emergency Management stands to lose $218 million of its funding, which has been invested in converting the airstrip into a flood-prone, mosquito-infested prison camp, according to documents filed by the state.

The so-called "Katrina Declaration" was signed by 191 current and former FEMA staffers, with 36 attaching their names publicly. The rest remained anonymous out of fear of retaliation, a valid concern, as it turns out, since 30 of the FEMA employees who did sign their names were placed on paid administrative leave. One declared that subtracting those employees from an already strained force could lead to "incalculable loss." The letter was sent to members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council, Members of Congress, and several relevant congressional committees.

Timed just ahead of Hurricane Katrina’s anniversary, the letter highlights the lessons learned from that failed response and the legislation enacted to prevent such a failure from happening again. In 20005, President George W. Bush faced significant backlash for his appointment of a political crony to head the agency. Michael D. Brown had no experience in emergency management but had helped raise a lot of money for Bush’s presidential reelection campaign. You're doin' a heck of a job, Brownie. The most significant position Brown had held prior was Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, a role for which he resigned after several alleged violations of the organization’s code of ethics. Brown would once again resign in disgrace in the immediate aftermath of Katrina.

As a result, one of the post-Katrina legal reforms was the statutory requirement that “The (FEMA) Administrator … shall be appointed from among individuals who have a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security; and not less than 5 years of executive leadership and management experience in the public or private sector.” The Katrina Declaration highlights that the two individuals who have been placed in charge of FEMA since January 2025 lack the proper qualifications and authority to lead the agency. Yet, despite being in the middle of hurricane season, FEMA continues to lack an appointed administrator with the mandated qualifications to fulfill the role.

Among the other issues highlighted was DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s requirement for her office to review and sign off on all contracts and awards exceeding $100,000. The letter states that this policy caused mission assignments to be delayed by up to 72 hours during the deadly July floods in Kerrville, Texas, leading to the resignation of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue Branch Chief, who cited these delays as the reason.

It also cites a statute that states that transfers of assets are prohibited, “except for details or assignments that do not reduce the capability of the Agency to perform its missions." Despite this prohibition, the letter notes that FEMA employees have been reassigned to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while FEMA is already operating at reduced capacity due to staff losses via DOGE cuts (the agency has lost 2,000 full-time staff, or roughly one-third of its total workforce).

We are literally expanding a masked, authoritarian secret police force at the expense of disaster relief assets and health care for the poor. That is not something characteristic of a prosperous, first-world democracy. The letter further claims that any employee who refuses the transfer to ICE is threatened with termination. The signatories call on Congress to establish FEMA as a cabinet-level independent agency within the executive branch to prevent such abuses in the future.

It should be no surprise that the courage of these individuals to speak out was met with an authoritarian response. If there has been one consistent hallmark of the Trump administration, it is that there exists no room for dissent, let alone critical feedback. We are currently without a qualified and confirmed Director of the Centers for Disease Control (and several of the agency’s top scientists) because a microbiologist refused to rubber-stamp the contrarian quackery of a conspiracy theorist with a law degree who once testified in court that a parasitic worm had eaten part of his brain.

A top CIA Russia expert was fired by Trump and his uniquely unqualified National Security Advisor Tulsi Gabbard, days after the recent Alaska summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Director John Ratcliffe had tapped the decorated agent for a prestigious assignment in Europe. Instead, she was stripped of her security clearance and summarily fired, bringing her 29-year career of distinguished service to an abrupt end. No reason was offered, but given the history of this administration, it’s more likely that MAGA influencer Laura Loomer told Trump she was a liberal plant than that a valid reason had existed.

Great organizations thrive when they are staffed by talented and experienced individuals who are seen as collaborators rather than subjects. Before Trump’s first term, supporters said we shouldn’t worry about his complete lack of executive experience because he’s “a good businessman who surrounds himself with the smartest people.” Anyone paying attention prior would have known that neither was true, but the second Trump administration has proven beyond all shadow of a doubt that this is someone who surrounds himself with sycophants and prizes fealty over talent at every turn.

If you have any doubt about that, just take a look at Trump’s latest cabinet meeting, a three-hour humiliation ritual in which officials must continue the practice of competing to see who can lavish the most praise on Dear Leader. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are, without question, the least qualified individuals to have ever held their respective cabinet positions. However, they are all more than willing to perform the ritual, regardless of how often it is required, and that is the only thing that matters.

There is an outstanding mini-series on HBO called Chernobyl. It dramatizes the events surrounding the calamitous 1986 failure of a Ukrainian nuclear plant in the former Soviet Union. The major takeaway is that something imminently preventable occurred because no one in leadership was willing to acknowledge even the possibility that anything declared by a person above them on the totem pole was incorrect—not aloud anyway. The most talented and educated from the rank and file were held back at every turn by some useful idiot above them, whose only qualification was their inpenetrable loyalty to Dear Leader. It was so farcical that comedy often straddled the tragedy in what was clearly meant to be a drama. It was also frighteningly familiar to what we see in our own government today.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." — George Orwell, 1984

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch is also the author of three novels and a short story collection available here. He can be reached at editor@thebradentontimes.com.