Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, killing 1,392 people and raising serious questions about the nation’s ability to handle natural disasters, current and former employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) say the Trump administration is moving emergency management policy backward.

The nation dramatically revamped its emergency response policies after the disastrous flooding in New Orleans, including through legislation named after the storm, known as the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA).

Now the Trump administration is seeking new changes to FEMA, arguing more power and money should be given to the states. President Trump has discussed axing FEMA entirely, though officials have dramatically shifted their tone and in recent months have emphasized reforms, rather than a closure.

Even those calls have generated worries on Capitol Hill and pushback from former FEMA employees.

One group of current and former agency employees released a letter this week that said “FEMA is enacting processes and leadership structures that echo the conditions PKEMRA was designed to prevent.”

Jennifer Forester, one of the staffers who signed the letter, said the biggest issue she has seen is inadequate staffing as the administration seeks to reduce the size of the federal government overall, including at FEMA.

“We've lost a lot of invaluable institutional knowledge. We have lost a lot of workers who knew........

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