Twenty years ago, Hurdle The Gulf coast was destroyed. After crossing Florida, the storm affected all five Gulf states. The coastal Mississippi was destroyed by the growth of the storm, and the New Orleans were killed on a terrible level when its levy system failed.
About 1,400 lives were lost. Countless people were separated from their communities, many forced to move to the Gulf region. Some were never able to return home.
Today, on the 20th anniversary of the disaster, we should consider what was lost, how we responded and what remains at stake.
Hurricane Katrina was a significant twist for disaster reaction. The storm revealed the risks of the devastating floods that occurred to the coastal communities, which deteriorated at the minimum and poorly managed infrastructure.
These risks are extended by changing climate, as we have seen in countless disasters across the country since 2005.
The storm also highlighted deep flaws in the federal government’s disaster response capacity and pre-of-ups scheme and risk mitigation.
Slow assistance, poor coordination and uneven recovery made an attempt at a national repetition and ground level to improve the federal emergency management agency.
Today’s FEMA is a product of hard lessons that have learned. Hurricane Katrina was overhala to FEMA after being more efficient and better coordinated with the state and local governments.
The agency strengthened better risk mapping, rapid mobilization of resources and pre-upa mitigation programs.
Today’s FEMA is not right. But it is more capable than the 2005 FEMA. Proposal to weaken FEMA Will reduce the progress of two decades and put more Americans at risk during future storms.
FEMA does not provide assistance only after the storm. Natural disasters like wildfires, inland floods and severe storms affect every state of the nation.
A well -revived and effectively managed FEMA is more important than ever; But now the action of Trump administration is reducing FEMA’s ability to protect Americans from disasters.
The agency has already lost significant capacity in the last six months, and the President’s budget request has proposed to cut FEMA’s funding. More than 20 percentLow income, rural and minority communities are particularly difficult when FEMA is revived.
Earlier this month, FEMA Act of 2025 The legislators were introduced in the House of Representatives by a bipartished group of legislators, which were willing to continue improving FEMA.
The bill will improve coordination with the state and local governments, strengthen FEMA’s disaster mitigation structure, streamline programs and procedures to allow communities to allow more efficient disaster assistance, to reduce community risks and expand pre-upa programs and to improve the coordination in a cabinet-level position.
All Americans are worth a fame which is equipped to deal with modern threats, such as strong and more rapid storms powered by a changing climate. The introduction of the FEMA Act is an important first step for the Congress to influence FEMA’s future.
We urge these policy makers to identify the need for strong federal leadership to make people aware of their rising risks, support pre-upa programs that reduce climate-operated effects and create safe disasters to communities.
The storm repeats the same mistakes during Katrina and later the risks of FEMA, leaving people leaving so many Gulf Coast communities. The people of the Gulf coast who were affected by this storm in such a way and many have spent making their communities back for decades.
While building back, they have advocated more effective programs at local, state and federal levels to ensure that their experience of frightening failure in disaster response has not been repeated and tolerated by communities like them around the nation.
We cannot allow their efforts to be forgotten, or worse, reversed.
Will McDado Associate Vice President, Climate Flexible Coasts and Environment Protects are watershedwmcdow@edf.org,
