FEMA staffers warn Trump’s cuts will result in Katrina-level catastrophe

David Richardson, the US acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, testifies before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on improving disaster response, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, in July. [File: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters]

More than 180 current and former employees of the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have published a letter warning that debilitating cuts to the agency charged with handling the federal disaster response risk a catastrophe like the one seen after Hurricane Katrina.

The letter, sent on Monday and signed by 35 named FEMA employees and 146 unnamed signatories, was a rare airing of internal dissent at the agency.