What we must remember 20 years after Hurricane Katrina

Aug. 29 marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. Disaster response in the United States has changed greatly in the past two decades, but many signs suggest that our disaster preparedness remains subpar.

Katrina—a Category 3 hurricane with 125 miles-per-hour winds at landfall and 30-foot storm surge—devastated the Gulf of Mexico coast. The fact that New Orleans is below sea level exacerbated the storm’s destructiveness there. Decades earlier, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed levees and flood walls to protect the city from flooding; however, they were not engineered to withstand the fury of a Katrina-sized event. The hurricane breached the city’s defenses, causing flooding of biblical proportions.

With a death toll nearing 1,400 and property damage exceeding $125 billion, Katrina remains the most destructive U.S. hurricane. Its devastation remains the marker by which many evaluate storm intensity, damage, and preparedness.

Twenty years later, the botched federal showing in Texas during the July 4 flash floods gave a shocking view of the weaknesses that exist in our readiness for the next big one.

Disaster response includes factors within our control as well as some beyond our control. One element we can control is the presence of qualified disaster-management personnel. Recognizing that the government’s response to Katrina could have been better, the Bush administration relieved Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) head David Brown of his duties just days later. The administration also produced a report focused on identifying “the critical challenges that undermined and prevented a more efficient and effective federal response.”

The recent flash flooding in Texas exposed the fact that—despite having had 20 years to improve—all is not well with America’s disaster preparedness today.

FEMA call logs after the July floods showed that over 40,000 calls for assistance went unanswered. At a July 23 hearing of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management titled “Fixing Emergency Management: Examining Improvements to FEMA’s Disaster Response,” FEMA’s Acting Director, David Richardson, said they had done nothing wrong, sticking to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s line that reports of unanswered calls were “fake news.” The main point of Richardson’s written testimony and oral summary was that FEMA should “return to a model where disaster response and recovery are locally led and state-managed.” This is a moot point, as emergency management is already “locally executed, state-managed, and federally supported,” in the words of former FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor.

One potential ray of light is the FEMA Review Council, formed Jan. 24 by the second Trump administration. Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth head up the council, which includes governors and ex-governors, mayors and emergency management experts. Its goal is to advise the president (in a report due Nov. 16) on FEMA’s capability to address disaster response. Unfortunately, given its proclivity to slash and burn federal agencies, whether the administration will accept the council’s recommendations is an open question.

On Aug. 25, nearly 200 current and former FEMA staff members sent a letter to Congress and the FEMA Review Council warning that current changes and leadership at FEMA could lead to another catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina. In their words, Katrina “was not just a natural disaster, but a man-made one” because of the government’s inability to provide aid when it was needed most.

While the debate over FEMA’s future rages on, we are left with the painful legacy of Katrina and the many natural disasters that have followed. Storms, floods, and fires are apolitical; victims are from all walks of life and don’t fit into neat categories. What remains is the simple fact that survivors need aid.

As we prepare for the next big disaster, we must set politics aside and ensure there are professional, qualified personnel ready to assist survivors.