Time - 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.”
Thirty-five staffers signed the letter with their names; 146 others signed it anonymously, citing “the culture of fear and suppression cultivated by this administration.”
“We the undersigned—current and former FEMA workers—have come together to sound the alarm to our administrators, the US Congress, and the American people so that we can continue to lawfully uphold our individual oaths of office and serve our country as our mission dictates,” the letter said.
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