(The Center Square) – Several Louisiana officials voiced their concerns over federal cuts by the current Trump administration during a press call with Sabotaging Our Safety on Tuesday in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
The devastating storm struck Aug. 29, 2005. Katrina displaced 1.5 million people as it racked up over $125 billion in damages (2005 dollar value).
“The further we get away from a catastrophic event, the more we forget about how bad it really was,” said former FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. “Progress still needs to be made. Change is needed. There’s always room for improvement, especially as the number of disasters, the severity and the complexity of recoveries continue to increase.”
Criswell; Mitch Landrieu, former Louisiana lieutenant governor and mayor of New Orleans; and Davante Lewis, Louisiana Public Service commissioner, said the cuts happening at the federal level are having a significant impact on disaster preparedness and response.
Sabotaging Our Safety is a nonprofit organization that seeks to bring awareness to the direct impact federal and state policies have on communities.
“We are losing a lot of ground quickly because the lessons that we learned are being completely undermined by the Trump administration,” said Landrieu. “I am very concerned about it for the state of Louisiana.”
Landrieu said natural disasters are made worse directly through the consequence of cuts made to the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Cuts to staffing and funding are happening to many disaster relief programs at the federal level, leaving many feeling understaffed and underprepared.
“We’ve lost access to mitigation funding right now, so we wouldn’t be able to rebuild those levees in the way that we did after Hurricane Katrina,” said Criswell. “With the hazard mitigation funding in jeopardy, and with the inability of FEMA to be as agile as it used to be, we’re really looking at not just pushing things down to the state and local level, but we’re making them more vulnerable.”
“What we are seeing from the cuts in the ‘Big, Beautiful, Ugly Bill’ versus what we are seeing in the cuts to the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA and NOAA is showcasing that people in Louisiana are struggling from even just a temperature change, not even from a hurricane,” said Lewis.
While some are concerned about the ongoing federal cuts, many Louisiana lawmakers are in support of the current administration’s cuts.
“Thanks to the leadership of President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and Congressman Steve Scalise, Americans just received: largest tax cut in history, no tax on tips, overtime and social security, permanently secure our borders, permanent increase to the child tax credit, protects two million family farms from punitive double taxation, unless American Energy Dominance, modernizes the American military and ends fraud, waste and abuse in our federal government,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said on social media.
At the time President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Acts, House Speaker Johnson, Gov. Jeff Landry, U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow and U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy all shared their support.
