8/30/2025
Sasha Abramsky
Named the Katrina Declaration, the letter was one of the most powerful written so far by beleaguered federal employees attempting to salvage their agencies from a predatory administration seemingly intent on bulldozing basic government functions. They have followed up on this by asking people around the country to join them in their protest by endorsing the letter.
“I knew that if I didn’t sign this letter I would feel as though I was failing in my duty to protect the public I swore an oath to serve; that I would feel complicit in the false narratives this administration has been working so hard to drive about their intentions with FEMA when I’ve seen only evidence to the contrary,” one of the signatories told me. Like most of those who spoke to me, she requested anonymity, fearing retribution from the Trump administration. “In the end, I knew that more people would die if I did not help raise the alarm. So I did. And I am. And I will continue to do so.”
The authors didn’t pull punches, arguing that the administration is violating the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which Congress passed in 2006 to improve FEMA’s performance after the agency’s dismal failures following the devastation the hurricane wrought upon New Orleans twenty years ago this week. The Trumpified Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent department to FEMA, is slashing funding to vital FEMA services. And the department is insisting that all grants in excess of $100,000 be personally approved by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem — a choice that has created a huge backlog in contracts.
Due to the new influx in red tape, residents of states facing the aftermath of natural disasters, such as Texas, which faced devastating floods in July; and North Carolina, which suffered huge storm-related losses earlier this year, have already faced huge delays in receiving assistance from FEMA. Contractors who run phone help lines and other vital services connecting the public to the agency have been mothballed and specialists have been taken off their regular jobs to help staff these cratering phone systems. Throughout the year, the department has systematically placed obstacles in the way of disaster preparedness and risk-mitigation programs around the country. And it has blocked all climate change-related disaster preparation and mitigation work, as well as analysis of future risks generated by climate change, despite the overwhelming evidence indicating climate change is real and is accelerating.
“Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, and our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters compel us to warn Congress and the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration,” the FEMA signatories explained in their letter. “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.”
“I desperately want it [the letter] to make a difference,” Katherine Landers told Truthout. A geospatial risk analyst, Landers helps generate the census tract-level National Risk Index — used by home-owners, businesses, town planners and insurance companies to estimate potential environmental hazards facing neighborhoods throughout the country. “I don’t want this to be in vain,” Landers said.
Landers was motivated to sign the letter by a growing sense of horror at how vulnerable the administration was leaving the general public to disasters, due to the cuts and the bureaucratic requirements they were imposing on FEMA staff. In particular, she was stunned by the war on science. And she, along with her colleagues, was outraged at how chaotic the response was to the deadly floods in Texas this summer — and by the fact that the contractors who ought to have been helping flood victims apply for relief funds and other services weren’t able to work because Noem hadn’t approved their contracts.
In December 2024, Landers and her colleagues released a Future Risk Index, based on years of climate change research from FEMA and other government science agencies. The index analyzed how risks from a slew of natural hazards would shift over the coming years as climate change accelerated, and also identified which communities would be left most vulnerable. In February 2025, in the wake of Trump’s executive orders clamping down on climate change research and anything that could be seen as bolstering diversity, equity, and inclusion, FEMA was forced to remove the index — taking offline not only the climate change research but also the analysis of how differing socio-economic conditions would create disparate impacts across different communities in the face of a warming planet. Landers and her colleagues were also sent a long list of climate change-related words that they were no longer allowed to keep up on their website. “The executive orders are forcing us to turn a blind eye to where the best science is,” Landers said. “It’s forcing us to turn our heads and completely ignore the science. It’s scary. Our hands are tied right now.”
Days after the letter was released, the more than 30 staff who had gone public with their names, Landers among them, were summarily placed on administrative leave, locked out of their government email accounts, and ordered not to work and not to enter the FEMA offices.
Truthout spoke to three other signatories who asked to remain anonymous given the continued blowback to the letter. “It was very sudden,” one said. “I was at work and we all received emails that we were placed on administrative leave.” She continued, “We’re in a state of purgatory. We can’t do our jobs but we’re also not free to do anything else. That’s very unusual.”
But the suspensions haven’t succeeded in stopping the growing chorus of outrage at the administration’s gutting of the agency. One signatory talked about the massive brain drain that FEMA is experiencing as employees are fired, quit, or take early retirement — upwards of thirty percent of the permanent full-time staff have been lost since Trump’s inauguration — leading to a broad loss of institutional knowledge.
Another, who works on FEMA’s mitigation strategies, likened the agency to the hub of a wheel, helping to coordinate disaster preparation, mitigation and response strategies with community groups, residents, and local governments around the country. “Without the hub,” she explained, “your spokes don’t fit in; your wheel can’t turn.” She said some employees are so down-in-the-dumps because of the cuts that they are getting ill and taking sick days, while others are so demoralized that they are even taking leave without pay, finding it too stressful to work in such a toxic environment.
A third talked about the extraordinary levels of burnout, and the rock-bottom morale plaguing employees. She expressed her fear that the government is so under-prepared as hurricane season gets underway that it will almost certainly cost lives.
There is a sense among FEMA employees that the country is perched on an abyss, and that at some point a major disaster will occur that a denuded agency cannot even begin to address. “The public is currently staring down the barrel of a gun held by the administration as it plays Russian Roulette, with natural disasters serving as the bullet. It may not be the next pull of the trigger — or tomorrow — but the outcome is inevitable unless meaningful, lasting change, as outlined in the Katrina Declaration, is implemented and with haste,” one of the signatories explained. “And this isn’t just hyperbole for the sake of it; the danger posed to our collective communities, especially those on the coast, in tornado alley, or in areas prone to fire and flooding, is very real.”
Sasha Abramsky
“The
danger posed to our collective communities … is very real,” said one employee
who signed a public letter.
Nearly 200 employees of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) signed an extraordinary letter sent
to Congress on August 25, denouncing the current administration’s erosion of
their work and warning that it risks the occurrence of another Hurricane
Katrina-sized disaster. More than 30 provided their names; the rest signed
anonymously.
Named the Katrina Declaration, the letter was one of the most powerful written so far by beleaguered federal employees attempting to salvage their agencies from a predatory administration seemingly intent on bulldozing basic government functions. They have followed up on this by asking people around the country to join them in their protest by endorsing the letter.
“I knew that if I didn’t sign this letter I would feel as though I was failing in my duty to protect the public I swore an oath to serve; that I would feel complicit in the false narratives this administration has been working so hard to drive about their intentions with FEMA when I’ve seen only evidence to the contrary,” one of the signatories told me. Like most of those who spoke to me, she requested anonymity, fearing retribution from the Trump administration. “In the end, I knew that more people would die if I did not help raise the alarm. So I did. And I am. And I will continue to do so.”
The authors didn’t pull punches, arguing that the administration is violating the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which Congress passed in 2006 to improve FEMA’s performance after the agency’s dismal failures following the devastation the hurricane wrought upon New Orleans twenty years ago this week. The Trumpified Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent department to FEMA, is slashing funding to vital FEMA services. And the department is insisting that all grants in excess of $100,000 be personally approved by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem — a choice that has created a huge backlog in contracts.
Due to the new influx in red tape, residents of states facing the aftermath of natural disasters, such as Texas, which faced devastating floods in July; and North Carolina, which suffered huge storm-related losses earlier this year, have already faced huge delays in receiving assistance from FEMA. Contractors who run phone help lines and other vital services connecting the public to the agency have been mothballed and specialists have been taken off their regular jobs to help staff these cratering phone systems. Throughout the year, the department has systematically placed obstacles in the way of disaster preparedness and risk-mitigation programs around the country. And it has blocked all climate change-related disaster preparation and mitigation work, as well as analysis of future risks generated by climate change, despite the overwhelming evidence indicating climate change is real and is accelerating.
“Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, and our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters compel us to warn Congress and the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration,” the FEMA signatories explained in their letter. “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.”
“I desperately want it [the letter] to make a difference,” Katherine Landers told Truthout. A geospatial risk analyst, Landers helps generate the census tract-level National Risk Index — used by home-owners, businesses, town planners and insurance companies to estimate potential environmental hazards facing neighborhoods throughout the country. “I don’t want this to be in vain,” Landers said.
Landers was motivated to sign the letter by a growing sense of horror at how vulnerable the administration was leaving the general public to disasters, due to the cuts and the bureaucratic requirements they were imposing on FEMA staff. In particular, she was stunned by the war on science. And she, along with her colleagues, was outraged at how chaotic the response was to the deadly floods in Texas this summer — and by the fact that the contractors who ought to have been helping flood victims apply for relief funds and other services weren’t able to work because Noem hadn’t approved their contracts.
In December 2024, Landers and her colleagues released a Future Risk Index, based on years of climate change research from FEMA and other government science agencies. The index analyzed how risks from a slew of natural hazards would shift over the coming years as climate change accelerated, and also identified which communities would be left most vulnerable. In February 2025, in the wake of Trump’s executive orders clamping down on climate change research and anything that could be seen as bolstering diversity, equity, and inclusion, FEMA was forced to remove the index — taking offline not only the climate change research but also the analysis of how differing socio-economic conditions would create disparate impacts across different communities in the face of a warming planet. Landers and her colleagues were also sent a long list of climate change-related words that they were no longer allowed to keep up on their website. “The executive orders are forcing us to turn a blind eye to where the best science is,” Landers said. “It’s forcing us to turn our heads and completely ignore the science. It’s scary. Our hands are tied right now.”
Days after the letter was released, the more than 30 staff who had gone public with their names, Landers among them, were summarily placed on administrative leave, locked out of their government email accounts, and ordered not to work and not to enter the FEMA offices.
Truthout spoke to three other signatories who asked to remain anonymous given the continued blowback to the letter. “It was very sudden,” one said. “I was at work and we all received emails that we were placed on administrative leave.” She continued, “We’re in a state of purgatory. We can’t do our jobs but we’re also not free to do anything else. That’s very unusual.”
But the suspensions haven’t succeeded in stopping the growing chorus of outrage at the administration’s gutting of the agency. One signatory talked about the massive brain drain that FEMA is experiencing as employees are fired, quit, or take early retirement — upwards of thirty percent of the permanent full-time staff have been lost since Trump’s inauguration — leading to a broad loss of institutional knowledge.
Another, who works on FEMA’s mitigation strategies, likened the agency to the hub of a wheel, helping to coordinate disaster preparation, mitigation and response strategies with community groups, residents, and local governments around the country. “Without the hub,” she explained, “your spokes don’t fit in; your wheel can’t turn.” She said some employees are so down-in-the-dumps because of the cuts that they are getting ill and taking sick days, while others are so demoralized that they are even taking leave without pay, finding it too stressful to work in such a toxic environment.
A third talked about the extraordinary levels of burnout, and the rock-bottom morale plaguing employees. She expressed her fear that the government is so under-prepared as hurricane season gets underway that it will almost certainly cost lives.
There is a sense among FEMA employees that the country is perched on an abyss, and that at some point a major disaster will occur that a denuded agency cannot even begin to address. “The public is currently staring down the barrel of a gun held by the administration as it plays Russian Roulette, with natural disasters serving as the bullet. It may not be the next pull of the trigger — or tomorrow — but the outcome is inevitable unless meaningful, lasting change, as outlined in the Katrina Declaration, is implemented and with haste,” one of the signatories explained. “And this isn’t just hyperbole for the sake of it; the danger posed to our collective communities, especially those on the coast, in tornado alley, or in areas prone to fire and flooding, is very real.”
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