Hurricane Katrina forced changes at FEMA. Trump is rolling them back

"Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana 20 years ago this week. The storm killed more than 1,300 people, and displaced tens of thousands more. In the years since Katrina, a slew of studies and government reports have found that most of the deaths and much of the destruction could have been avoided. Levees built and maintained by the federal government collapsed during and after the storm, causing massive flooding in New Orleans."

"It was immediately clear that the government had failed. Then-President George W. Bush acknowledged as much in a speech in New Orleans three weeks after the storm: "The system, at every level of government, was not well-coordinated, and was overwhelmed in the first few days," Bush said. "Katrina was a catastrophic government failure by every measure," says Andy Horowitz, a historian and expert on the Gulf Coast who wrote a book about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina."

"One agency became the public face of the botched response: the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As the country's top disaster response agency, FEMA is charged with responding to disasters that overwhelm the capability of local and state governments. The agency is supposed to coordinate search and rescue efforts, emergency shelters, mass evacuation and debris removal after disasters like Katrina. But it took days for federal help to arrive in New Orleans,"

Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,300 people and displaced tens of thousands in Louisiana. Most deaths and much destruction could have been avoided, according to studies and government reports. Federally built and maintained levees collapsed, causing massive flooding in New Orleans. Local, state and federal officials struggled to evacuate, rescue and house people in the hardest-hit areas. The federal response was slow and poorly coordinated, with survivors stranded in inundated conditions. President George W. Bush called the response overwhelmed, and critics labeled the disaster a catastrophic government failure. FEMA became the public face of the botched response, and then-director Michael Brown resigned amid widespread criticism.

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