FEMA Budget Cuts - Could a Katrina-Scale Disaster Be Inevitable?
In late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the surrounding areas, killing an estimated 1,400 to 1,800 people, displacing 770,000, and causing more financial damage than any other tropical cyclone in U.S. history. [1]
Despite mandatory evacuation orders, an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people remained in New Orleans when the hurricane hit.
The levees and floodwalls designed to protect New Orleans were overwhelmed.
Drowning from floodwaters was the leading cause of death in Louisiana (+/-40%).
Images of people on top of submerged cars and dogs on car roofs struggling to survive flooded cable news for weeks.
Disaster response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) came under almost immediate scrutiny and criticism was fierce.
Despite former President George W. Bush’s praise — “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”[2] — FEMA Director Michael D. Brown resigned several weeks after Katrina’s landfall, primarily due to widespread criticism of the federal government's disaster response.
The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned[4] report from February 2006, declared that “The Nation’s incident management plans and procedures fell short… [and] improved operational plans could have better mitigated the Hurricane’s tragic effects.”
Many subsequent studies and government reports have found that many of the deaths caused by Katrina could have been avoided with more robust disaster preparedness.
After the report, the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA)[3] was passed into law.
PKEMRA restructured FEMA inside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), clarified its mission, strengthened its authority, and restructured funding to better manage disaster relief efforts.
According to a recent FEMA press release commemorating the 20-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina:
“PKEMRA established FEMA as a distinct agency within the Department of Homeland Security, defined FEMA’s primary mission and authorized the pre-positioning of federal assets – including essential commodities, equipment and search and rescue personnel – for deployment at a state’s request ahead of a disaster. Even with this progress, FEMA continues to reform and improve how the agency works to support states before, during, and after disasters.”
However, recent federal government and FEMA actions have led many experts, including former directors of the agency, to warn that many of the reforms and improvements under PKEMRA are being rolled back by the current administration.
What does that mean for disaster preparedness in the US?
Summary of Recent FEMA Changes
The situation at FEMA continues to evolve rapidly, with prominent voices inside the current administration calling for disbanding the agency altogether.
Here’s a summary of the policy changes that has many emergency preparedness experts highly concerned about FEMA’s current and future effectiveness at managing disaster response.
In April 2025, FEMA announced it was ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program. According to FEMA, “The BRIC program supports states, local and territorial governments, and Tribal Nations as they work to reduce their hazard risk.”
BRIC was launched by FEMA in 2020 and was a key component of federal funding for disaster preparedness projects at the state and local levels.
In July 2024, former President Joe Biden announced an additional $1 billion in federal funds for BRIC.
On July 2, 2024, former President Joe Biden announced $1B in FY2023 BRIC project selections (656 disaster/climate change resilience projects across the US).
FEMA’s program cancellation extends retroactively to 2020, with the agency calling for any grant money not already distributed to be returned to the federal government.
In ending the program, the agency stated, “BRIC… was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.”
The White House has called for “cutting FEMA's budget for non-disaster grants by $646 million in the next fiscal year.”
According to CBS News, “FEMA has lost about one-third of its staff through a combination of firings and buyouts, and the administration has overhauled the contract renewal system for more than two-thirds of FEMA's workforce.”
Former FEMA Officials Warn We're Sliding Backward on Disaster Readiness
On August 29th, 2025, CNN interviewed five former FEMA heads from every presidential administration since Hurricane Katrina.
To differing degrees, each expressed concern with recent changes to FEMA’s mission and how the agency is run.
Deanne Criswell, the FEMA administrator during the Biden administration, said, “You’ve seen 20 years of progress taken away in six months. It’s like we’ve forgotten everything that we learned from Katrina, and we’re trying to go back to the way it was beforehand.”
Brock Long, FEMA head during part of President Donald Trump’s first term, told CNN, “I’m all for holistic reform. I don’t like how it’s being done. I don’t understand killing FEMA without an identifiable way forward that can be time-phased in.”
The agency's chiefs were joined in their concerns by almost 200 current and former FEMA employees and concerned scientists who signed the Katrina Declaration.
An initiative of advocacy group Stand Up For Science, the Katrina Declaration petitioned members of the FEMA Review Council and members of Congress to reconsider changes being made to the agency.
The open letter was only personally signed by 36 people, with 155 signatories electing to remain anonymous out of fear of repercussions for taking a position.
Responding to the Katrina Declaration, FEMA acting press secretary Daniel Llargues said the Department of Homeland Security is "committed to ensuring FEMA delivers for the American people."
Shifting Responsibility: Self-Reliance and Local Resilience
The current administration’s stated position is that the federal government should divest much of its responsibility for disaster management and pass it on to state and local governments, businesses, and individuals.
In May 2025, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said, “States should manage their emergencies and we come in and support them,” suggesting that FEMA “needs to be renamed.”
FEMA’s 2025 budget states, “Effective emergency management is a shared responsibility among the whole community, where disaster operations are Federally supported, State managed, and Locally executed.”
According to the Washington Post, calls within the administration to abolish FEMA entirely have waned since President Trump visited the disaster site of the July 2025 Central Texas Floods.
At least 135 people died in Texas Hill Country when devastating flash floods along the Guadalupe River hit Kerr County, where most of the fatalities occurred.
Flooding in the US is getting worse — particularly flash flooding in parts of the country hundreds of miles from the nearest Pacific or Atlantic Ocean coast that haven’t been historically flood-prone.
Even if FEMA isn’t abolished or renamed, its role in national disaster response is diminishing, with much of the responsibility being transferred to the states, local communities, businesses, and individual households seeking to minimize impact from natural disasters and extreme weather events.
Final Thoughts
Is another Katrina inevitable?
Many experts predict that Category 1-5 hurricanes are likely to get more frequent and severe in the coming years, at least partially due to the effects of human-made climate change.
Unfortunately, it remains extremely challenging to predict when and where a Category 3 tropical cyclone like Hurricane Katrina will make landfall.
Katrina reached Category 5 in the Gulf but weakened to Category 3 at landfall in Louisiana.
How the changes to FEMA’s mission and resources will impact disaster response if a hurricane like Katrina hits the US is almost impossible to predict with any certainty, but experts in the field are extremely concerned.
The electricity grid is often one of the first casualties of natural disasters and extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, wildfires, blizzards, and heat waves.
Power outages are temporary, but can stretch on for days or weeks, often with deadly consequences.
More and more US homeowners are turning to home backup power systems to help them stay safe and comfortable during blackouts.
Reasonable steps to increase emergency preparedness will likely pay off if federal disaster response is increasingly curtailed as it has been in 2025.
Resources Cited
Fema.gov. “20 Years after Hurricane Katrina,” August 29, 2025. https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20250829/20-years-after-hurricane-katrina?
“President Arrives in Alabama, Briefed on Hurricane Katrina.” 2005. Archives.gov. September 2, 2005. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050902-2.html.
R-ME, Susan M. “S.3721 - 109th Congress (2005-2006): Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006.” Congress.gov, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/3721?
The White House, “The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned” (Washington, DC: The White House, 2006), https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/katrina/govdocs/katrina-lessons-learned.pdf
Reid, Tim. “FEMA Staff Tell US Congress Inexperience of Trump Officials Risks Katrina-Style Disaster.” Reuters, August 25, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/fema-staff-tell-us-congress-inexperience-trump-officials-risks-katrina-style-2025-08-25/
Cohen, Gabe, Isabelle Khurshudyan, and Riane Lumer. 2025. “Former FEMA Leaders Have a Warning: Lessons from Katrina Are Being Forgotten under Trump.” CNN. August 29, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/politics/fema-katrina-20-years-trump.
Santana, Rebecca. “Trump Administration Ends Key Grant Program That Helps Communities Prepare for Disasters.” AP News, April 4, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/fema-grants-cuts-trump-emergency-management-disaster-bc36ea4ca328e1eb4a07641ba1fb770e.
“Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities.” 2025. Fema.gov. April 8, 2025. https://www.fema.gov/grants/mitigation/learn/building-resilient-infrastructure-communities.
“President Biden Announces $1 Billion in Project Selections to Make Communities More Resilient to Climate Change and Natural Hazards through His Investing in America Agenda | Homeland Security.” 2024. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 2024. https://www.dhs.gov/archive/news/2024/07/02/president-biden-announces-1-billion-project-selections-make-communities-more.
Walsh, Joe, and Nicole Sganga. “FEMA Staff Argue Trump Administration’s Cuts Risk Undoing Progress since Hurricane Katrina.” Cbsnews.com, August 26, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fema-staff-argue-trump-administration-cuts-risk-undoing-progress-since-hurricane-katrina/.
Valdes, Nicole. 2025. “FEMA Responds to Deadly Kentucky Tornadoes amid Layoffs, Looming Cuts.” Cbsnews.com. May 20, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fema-deadly-tornadoes-kentucky-andy-beshear/.
Declaration, Katrina. 2019. “STAND up for SCIENCE.” STAND up for SCIENCE. 2019. https://www.standupforscience.net/fema-katrina-declaration.
STAND. 2019. “STAND up for SCIENCE.” STAND up for SCIENCE. 2019. https://www.standupforscience.net/.
Banks, Torrence. “FEMA Staff Warns of Katrina-like Response to Natural Disasters under Trump Administration.” NOTUS, August 25, 2025. https://www.notus.org/louisiana/fema-staff-trump-administration-letter-katrina.
Layne, Nathan. “FEMA Should Take New Name, States Should Bear Costs, DHS Head Noem Says.” Reuters, May 20, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/fema-should-take-new-name-states-should-bear-costs-dhs-head-noem-says-2025-05-20/.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Budget Overview: Fiscal Year 2025 Congressional Justification (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2024), https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-04/2024_0320_federal_emergency_management_agency.pdf
Allison, Natalie. 2025. “Trump Administration Moves Away from Abolishing FEMA.” The Washington Post. July 11, 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/11/trump-fema-texas-floods/?