FEMA Katrina Declaration

TO: Members of Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council

Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 hurricane, claiming an estimated 1,833 lives, leaving millions homeless, and causing approximately $161 billion in damage.  Hurricane Katrina was not just a natural disaster, but a man-made one: the inexperience of senior leaders and the profound failure by the federal government to deliver timely, unified, and effective aid to those in need left survivors to fend for themselves for days, and highlighted how Black, Indigenous, and low-income communities are disproportionally affected by disasters.  These failures prompted Congress to pass the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 (PKEMRA), which introduced safeguards to ensure such shortcomings of disaster preparation and response would not be repeated.  However, two decades later, FEMA is enacting processes and leadership structures that echo the conditions PKEMRA was designed to prevent.

1) We oppose the reduction in capability of FEMA to perform its missions. 

2) We oppose the ongoing failure to appoint a qualified FEMA administrator, as required by law. 

3) We oppose the elimination of life- and cost-saving risk reduction programs.  

4) We oppose interference with preparedness programs that build capacity for our SLTT partners. 

5) We oppose the censorship of climate science, environmental protection, and efforts to ensure all communities have access to information, resources, and support.

6) We oppose the reduction of FEMA’s disaster workforce.

The signatories of this letter are FEMA employees from across the United States who are dedicated to helping people before, during, and after disasters, and who are members of the communities we seek to support.  In addition to named signatories, we include anonymous signatories who share our concerns but choose not to identify themselves due to the culture of fear and suppression cultivated by this administration.

-- "The FEMA Katrina Declaration" (25 August 2025), four days before the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

All Others

"In God we trust.  All others must use data."

-- Mary Walton, The Deming Management Method (1986) Chapter 20 "Doing It with Data" p. 96

They Know We Know

They lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying but they keep lying anyway, and we keep pretending to believe them.

-- Elena Gorokhova, A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir by Elena Gorokhova (2010), Chapter 13: A Tour of Leningrad, pp 172 and 173

Organic Sense Lives

Media are means of extending and enlarging our organic sense lives into our environment.

-- Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980), Canadian philosopher, futurist, and communications theorist, "The Care and Feeding of Communication Innovation", Dinner Address to Conference on 8 mm Sound Film and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 8 November 1961

DMSP Termination

Topic: Suspension of All Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Data

Product(s) or Data Impacted:  All Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) data and products: FINE, SMOOTH and HOUSEKEEPING data from Operational Linescan System (OLS), Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS), and all Near-Earth Space Weather instruments

Date/Time of Initial Impact: no later than June 30, 2025 

Date/Time of Expected End: NA Termination

Details/Specifics of Change: 

Due to recent service changes, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) will discontinue ingest, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025.  ESPC interfaces will not receive DMSP data and all data products will be suspended.  Users should expect all FINE, SMOOTH and HOUSEKEEPING data from Operational Linescan System (OLS), Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS), and all Near-Earth Space Weather instruments to be terminated.  This service change and termination will be permanent. 

-- Notice published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA (25 June 2025), announcing that after 40 years, on 5 days' notice, the U.S. Department of Defense will no longer provide satellite weather data, leaving hurricane forecasters without crucial information about storms as peak hurricane season arrives in the Atlantic.  The termination has been delayed by 1 month after an outcry from scientists and forecasters, NPR "Defense Department will stop providing crucial satellite weather data" (1 July 2025)

Be Ashamed

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.

-- Horace Mann (1796 - 1859), American education reformer and abolitionist, Address at Antioch College (1859)

Inconvenience

So in all human affairs one notices, if one examines them closely, that it is impossible to remove one inconvenience without another emerging.

-- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527), Italian political philosopher, historian, musician, poet, and playwright, Discourses on Livy (1517) Book 1, Ch. 6 

What Do We Get For That?

The total actual 2024 budget to run the country was about 7 trillion dollars.  That means the NASA budget was only 0.004 of the national budget -- less than half a percent.  For every hundred dollars the US government spent, it put 40 cents in the bucket for NASA.

And what do we get for that?  The Universe. 

Missions to Mercury, Venus, Jupiter.  Landers on Mars, telescopes that peer through the depths of the cosmos, a fleet of spacecraft monitoring the Sun, the star to which we owe our existence.  The abject awe and wonder of images of a glorious cosmos.  The first A in NASA is for Aeronautics, too; research that makes air travel better, faster, and safer.  NASA science includes observing and monitoring our own planet as well, making satellites that track our water, atmosphere, and land. NASA scientists study climate change, one of the single biggest existential threats to humanity.

NASA employs about 18,000 people across all 50 states (and that doesn't include contractors, of which I was one for many years, and people such as  academics who have NASA grants).  NASA partners with space agencies around the world, a diversified portfolio that guarantees the best scientific research always pushing past the cutting edge and accelerating our understanding of, well, everything. 

-- Philip Plait, Bad Astronomy Newsletter, "Trump threatens to eviscerate NASA" (2 June 2025)

Destroy The Institutions

The way the Trump administration treats many Americans is as a defeated enemy, not as fellow Americans.  Like, when you conquer a society by force, when you defeat another nation at war, you conquer them, you often will destroy the institutions that undergird it, to ensure pacification, to remain in power.  And then maybe you rebuild them in a form you like.  

I think what has been so confusing for so many people, because I think we tend to think everyone acts in good faith, is that the Trump folks are treating, like the EPA and Harvard, not as fellow Americans and American institutions that are trying to act for the good of America, but as a defeated enemy.  

-- David Plotz, host of Slate's Political Gabfest podcast, on the show's 29 May 2025 episode "Why Destroy Harvard?" @25:50

Nobody Ever Listened

Nobody ever listened to me until they didn't know who I was.

-- Banksy, prolific graffiti artist from Bristol, UK, whose artwork has appeared across the globe, Wall and Piece (2007)

As Much As You Can

Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.

-- Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Dutch Post-Impressionist painter, in a letter to his brother Theo van Gogh (January 1874)

There's More

There's more to being a human being than having your own way.

-- John Updike (1932 - 2009), American novelist, poet, critic, and short-story writer, Rabbit at Rest (1990)

What Comes After

What comes after is not always progress.

-- Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni (1785 - 1873), Italian novelist, poet, dramatist, and critic, "Del romanzo storico" (1850), in Andrea Tagliapietra (ed.) La storia e l'invenzione (Milano: Gallone, 1997) p. 64

A Deliberate Decision

Never be insolent unless it is a deliberate decision, and only toward a man more powerful than yourself.

-- Émile Auguste Chartier (1868 - 1951), writing under the pseudonym Alain, notable French essayist, philosopher, and journalist, Giving Pleasure (1928)

Portals Of Discovery

A man of genius makes no mistakes.  His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

-- James Joyce (1882 - 1941), Irish novelist, short-story writer, and poet, Ulysses (1922) Ch. 9: Scylla and Charybdis

Difficult To Resume

Nothing is more dangerous than discontinued labor; it is habit lost.  A habit easy to abandon, difficult to resume.

-- Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885), French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement, Les Misérables, Volume Four: Saint Denis and Idyl of the Rue Plumet, Book II - Eponine, Chapter I: The Field of the Lark

Even More Important

While it is well enough to leave footprints on the sands of time, it is even more important to make sure they point in a commendable direction.

-- James Branch Cabell (1879 - 1958), American author of satirical fantasy works, Beyond Life (1919) Ch. VI : Which Values the Candle, § 2, p. 173

Enshittification

Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is the term used to describe the pattern in which online products and services decline in quality over time.  Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.

Writer Cory Doctorow coined the neologism enshittification in November 2022, though he was not the first to describe and label the concept.  The American Dialect Society selected it as its 2023 Word of the Year, with Macquarie Dictionary following suit for 2024.

-- WikiPedia entry for Enshittification, describing a process just witnessed at Twitter, after its takeover by Elon Musk, and now being experienced by all in America, after its takeover by Elon Musk, where he seems to believe that he and Donald Trump are the shareholders

Farewell Address

Before I begin, let me speak to important news from earlier today.  After eight months of nonstop negotiation by my administration, a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached by Israel and Hamas, the elements of which I laid out in great detail in May of this year.  This plan was developed and negotiated by my team and will be largely implemented by the incoming administration. That's why I told my team to keep the incoming administration fully informed, because that's how it should be: working together as Americans.

This will be my final address to you -- the American people -- from the Oval Office, from this desk as president.  And I've been thinking a lot about who we are and, maybe more importantly, who we should be. ...

Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.  We see the consequences all across America.  And we've seen it before, more than a century ago.  But the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts.

People should be able to make as much as they can, but play by the same rules, pay their fair share in taxes.  You know, we've proven we don't have to choose between protecting the environment and growing the economy.  We're doing both.  But powerful forces want to wield their unchecked influence to eliminate the steps we've taken to tackle the climate crisis to serve their own interest for power and profit.  We must not be bullied into sacrificing the future, the future of our children and our grandchildren.  We must keep pushing forward and push faster.  There is no time to waste.

Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power.  The free press is crumbling.  Editors are disappearing.  Social media is giving up on fact-checking.  The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.

We must reform the tax code -- not by giving the biggest tax cuts to billionaires, but by making them begin to pay their fair share.  We need to get dark money -- that's that hidden funding behind too many campaigns' contributions -- we need to get it out of our politics.

A fair shot is what makes America, America.  Everyone is entitled to a fair shot -- not a guarantee, but just a fair shot, an even playing field -- going as far as your hard work and talent can take you.  We can never lose that essential truth -- remain who we are.  Now it's your turn to stand guard.  May you all be the keeper of the flame.  May you keep the faith.

I love America.  You love it too.  God bless you all.  And may God protect our troops.  Thank you for this great honor.

-- Excerpts from President Biden's Farewell Address to the Nation (15 January 2025)

Problems And Mysteries

Our ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries.  When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have insight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for.  When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and bewilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like. 

-- Steven Pinker (1954 -), Canadian-born American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and popular science writer, How the Mind Works, explaining Noam Chomsky's position