As the congressman for New Orleans, I cannot let the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina pass without warning the nation.
Katrina was more than a storm. It was a failure of government at every level. Eighty percent of New Orleans was under water, nearly 2,000 lives were lost and families were scattered across the country. That tragedy was supposed to teach us lessons about preparedness, resilience and responsibility. Yet two decades later, troubling signs suggest those lessons are being forgotten.
Two decades later, troubling signs suggest those lessons are being forgotten.
Scientists now tell us that sections of our floodwalls are sinking — some faster than the seas are rising. This means that parts of the $15 billion system built after Katrina are already weakening. At the same time, federal budget cuts are gutting the levee inspection program. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers once inspected New Orleans’ levees every year. Now, because of cuts pushed through by President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, the Corps says it may only be able to do full inspections every five years — if funding is available.
These cuts are part of Trump's “Big Beautiful Bill.” They slash programs designed to keep communities safe in order to fund giveaways for the wealthy. In the very city where broken levees drowned entire neighborhoods, and people who lived in them, Washington is now cutting back the very oversight that keeps those levees strong.
This is reckless. It threatens people’s lives in the city I grew up in and love. And it cannot stand.
That is why I have written directly to President Trump and the Army Corps of Engineers to demand that these inspections be restored. I have also opposed his administration’s proposed cuts to the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration because they’d weaken our ability to track storms. And I oppose his proposed dismantling of FEMA because doing so would undermine our ability to recover when disaster strikes. These are not abstract policy disputes. The president’s decisions have put human lives in danger.
New Orleans is stronger than it was in 2005. We have rebuilt homes, schools and businesses. We have strengthened local leadership and invested in new infrastructure. But no city can be fully safe if the federal government retreats from its responsibility to protect the people.
You deserve better than a future where warnings are ignored and protections are weakened.
For those who lived through Katrina, the scars are still fresh. For those too young to remember, its story is written in photographs and in the grief of their parents. To them I say: You deserve better than a future where warnings are ignored and protections are weakened.
The promise after Katrina was simple: Never Again. That promise must be kept — not just for New Orleans, but for every community in America that depends on levees, floodwalls or federal disaster response. Climate change is making storms stronger. Sea levels are rising. We should be doubling down on safety, not cutting corners.
We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. Lives depend on it.