Charles Parker
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charlesparker.bsky.social
Charles Parker
@charlesparker.bsky.social
Professor of Political Science, @uu-polisci.bsky.social, Uppsala University 🇸🇪 • Climate Change • Crisis • Disasters • Global Environmental Politics • International Relations • Public Policy.
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Katrina taught us that failing to act on known risks has devastating consequences. Let’s not forget. Let’s not repeat it. 🌀
📘 Full article: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Preventable Catastrophe? The Hurricane Katrina Disaster Revisited
This article probes the warning-response failures that left the city of New Orleans vulnerable to catastrophic hurricanes and the inability of local, state, and federal authorities to mount an adequa...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
August 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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That’s why the current effort by President Trump to gut FEMA and dump disaster costs on the states is alarming. It reflects a willful ignorance for the hard-won lessons of Katrina. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...
FEMA Employees Warn That Trump Is Gutting Disaster Response
www.nytimes.com
August 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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The core lesson: resilience is not built in the storm. It’s built before! Sustained investment, strong federal coordination, and a commitment to learning from past failures are all needed.
August 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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And politically? Natural hazard preparedness was deprioritized. Homeland Security focused almost exclusively on terrorism. Warnings about hurricanes were drowned out in a crowded, reactive policy space.
August 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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Organizationally, emergency planning was fragmented. Key agencies weren’t aligned, and FEMA’s role had been weakened by its integration into a terrorism-focused DHS after 9/11.
August 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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Psychologically, overconfidence and wishful thinking led officials to believe the levees would hold. Many discounted repeated warnings as alarmist. Those assumptions proved fatal.
August 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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This wasn’t just a FEMA failure. The failures stretched across federal, state, and local governments. Katrina was a long-predicted event. It became a disaster because many responsible authorities didn’t act on those warnings.
August 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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In our article, my colleagues and I examined the Katrina disaster through three perspectives—psychological, organizational, and agenda-political—to better understand how and why things went so wrong.
August 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM