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

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)

To Know How Much

The most ignorant are the most conceited.  To know how much there is that we do not know, is one of the most valuable parts of our attainments; for such knowledge becomes both a lesson of humility and a stimulus to exertion.

-- Horace Mann (1796 - 1859), American education reformer and abolitionist, Lectures on Education (1855) Lecture 6

Equally Convenient

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

-- Henri Poincaré (1854 - 1912), French mathematician, theoretical physicist, and philosopher of science, Science and Hypothesis (1901), Preface, Dover abridged edition (1952), p. xxii

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)

Constructive Engagement

As leaders of America's colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.  We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight.  However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.  We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding. ...

The price of abridging the defining freedoms of American higher education will be paid by our students and our society.  On behalf of our current and future students, and all who work at and benefit from our institutions, we call for constructive engagement that improves our institutions and serves our republic.

-- American Association of Colleges and Universities, "A Call for Constructive Engagement" (22 April 2025), signed by representatives of more than 200 member institutions

Covid Anniversary

It was on March 11, 2020, when I first described COVID-19 as a "pandemic".  While many media highlight that date as the pandemic's anniversary, the much more significant moment was six weeks earlier, on January 30, 2020, when I declared a public health emergency of international concern -- the highest level of alarm under international health law.  At the time, there were fewer than 100 reported cases outside China, and no reported deaths.

COVID showed the world where our individual and collective weaknesses lay, as organizations and countries alike.  But it also sparked great collaboration, investment and innovation.

We have the knowledge, tools, and experience to prevent the next pandemic.  What we need now is determination, cooperation, and the will to act before disaster strikes again.

History will judge us, not on whether we saw the next pandemic coming, but on how well we were prepared.  We know we cannot sustain a repeat of the losses inflicted by a crisis like COVID.  So I am confident my answer will turn to an unequivocal "yes" when we are asked in the future if we are primed for preventing or containing the next pandemic.  We have no other alternative -- our collective global security demands it.

-- Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization, "After COVID-19, is the world ready for the next pandemic?", on the 5th anniversary of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic (11 March 2025)

Willing To Admit

Science doesn't stop when it comes up with a nice answer.  It looks for more data.  It comes up with new ideas.  It's willing to admit it's wrong.

-- Guy Consolmagno (1952 -), American astronomer, physicist, Jesuit, and director of the Vatican Observatory, "From MIT to Specola Vaticana: Guy Consolmagno at TEDxViadellaConcialiazione" (24 April 2013)

Eustress

The term eustress means "beneficial stress" -- either psychological, physical (e.g., exercise), or biochemical/radiological (hormesis).

The word was introduced by endocrinologist Hans Selye (1907-1982) in 1976; he combined the Greek prefix eu- meaning "good", and the English word stress, to give the literal meaning "good stress".  The Oxford English Dictionary traces early use of the word (in psychological usage) to 1968.

Eustress is the positive cognitive response to stress that is healthy, or gives one a feeling of fulfillment or other positive feelings.  Hans Selye created the term as a subgroup of stress to differentiate the wide variety of stressors and manifestations of stress.

-- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

An Education

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know.  It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.  It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know, and it's knowing how to use the information once you get it.

-- William Feather (1889 - 1981), American publisher and author, as quoted in Telephony, Vol. 150 (1956), p. 23

Indefinitely Perfectible

The methods of science aren't foolproof, but they are indefinitely perfectible.  Just as important: there is a tradition of criticism that enforces improvement whenever and wherever flaws are discovered.

-- Daniel Clement Dennett III (1942 - 2024), American atheist philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist, "Postmodernism and Truth", delivered at the 1998 World Congress of Philosophy (13 August 1998)

Not A Single One

Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.

-- Daniel Clement Dennett III (1942 - 2024), American atheist philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist, Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness (2005), p. 2

Quietly Available

We used to think that secrecy was perhaps the greatest enemy of democracy, and as long as there was no suppression or censorship, people could be trusted to make the informed decisions that would preserve our free society, but we have learned in recent years that the techniques of misinformation and misdirection have become so refined that, even in an open society, a cleverly directed flood of misinformation can overwhelm the truth, even though the truth is out there, uncensored, quietly available to anyone who can find it.

-- Daniel Clement Dennett III (1942 - 2024), American atheist philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist, Breaking the Spell: Religion As A Natural Phenomenon (2006)

Nor The Problem

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

-- Sir Karl Raimund Popper (1902 - 1994), Austrian-British philosopher, academic, and social commentator, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (1972)

Even Hotter

The results from the Copernicus Climate Change Service show the planet's average temperature on July 21 was 17.09 degrees Celsius (62.76 degrees Fahrenheit) -- breaking a record set only last year.  The historic day comes on the heels of 13 straight months of unprecedented temperatures and the hottest year scientists have ever seen.

"We are in truly uncharted territory," Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement. "And as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see records being broken in future months and years."

-- Sarah Kaplan, Sunday was the hottest day ever recorded on Earth, scientists say, in The Washington Post 23 July 2024

[When I clicked through to the data, I noted that the next day (Monday) was even hotter, at 17.15 degrees Celsius]

Safer And Faster

Survival machines which can simulate the future are one jump ahead of survival machines who can only learn on the basis of overt trial and error.  The trouble with overt trial is that it takes time and energy.  The trouble with overt error is that it is often fatal.  Simulation is both safer and faster.

-- Richard Dawkins (26 March 1941 -), British evolutionary biologist and author, known for his advocacy of atheism, The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989)

RIP Bill Anders

That photograph, shared globally and always in the public domain, has since served to educate and inspire: The Earth we saw rising over the battered grey lunar surface was small and delicate, a magnificent spot of color in the vast blackness of space.  Once-distant places appeared inseparably close.  Borders that once rendered division vanished.  All of humanity appeared joined together on this glorious-but-fragile sphere.

-- William Alison Anders (17 October 1933 - 7 June 2024), former American astronaut, who flew as Lunar Module Pilot for the Apollo 8 mission (although no lunar module was carried by the mission), the first mission where humans traveled beyond Low Earth orbit, "50 Years After 'Earthrise,' a Christmas Eve Message from Its Photographer" Space.com (24 December 2018)

Explain It

Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize.

-- Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988), American physicist, statement (c. 1965), quoted in "An irreverent best-seller by Nobel laureate Richard Feynman gives nerds a good name", People Magazine (22 July 1985)