A former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has linked the devastating California wildfires to Hurricane Katrina that destroyed much of New Orleans in 2005.

Craig Fugate, now a consultant in Gainesville, Florida, told the Los Angeles Times last week, “This is your Hurricane Katrina. It will forever change the community. It will be a touch point that everybody will remember, before and after.”

Fugate served as President Barack Obama’s FEMA administrator from 2009 to 2017.

The Advocate said the hurricane-force Santa Ana winds stoking the California wildfires that broke out Jan. 7 have killed at least 25 people and burned through at least 40,000 acres. Thousands of homes and businesses have also been destroyed.

Louisianans who remember Katrina are trying to help those in California, and Gov. Jeff Landry is among their number. However, The Advocate said some Republicans, including President Donald Trump and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Benton, Louisiana, want to put political conditions on the federal money needed in California, a Democratic-dominated state.

A Democratic congressman from central California at a hearing said Louisiana received $120 billion without political strings after Katrina and there should be no political strings attached to federal wildfire assistance.

“I would agree with that,” Landry said. “Look, I don’t think we should be placing conditions on funding that is not attributable to the disaster in and of itself.”

Landry added later, “As someone who has lived through and has been an elected official through many natural disasters over in Louisiana and what matters most is the speed at which you can deliver the service that’s needed at that time. The politics can wait.”

Cotton Holdings, a Global disaster recovery group, has offices in Lake Charles and St. Rose and has organized a clothing drive for wildfire victims.

Branding Zinat Ahmed, the company’s executive vice president of marketing, said, “These are people who have lost every single thing in this fire. They don’t even have a structure to their name.”

Colleen Waguespack, owner of Fig and Dove home décor in Baton Rouge, donated half of all sales last week to Los Angeles-based causes within her industry who are working with victims on the ground.

“We were blown away by the support received during Hurricane Katrina,” Waguespack said.

The United Cajun Navy, known for assisting hurricane victims along the Gulf Coast, sent volunteers to Los Angeles last week with hygiene kits, food and masks for victims.

Among those who had to evacuate from the California wildfires was Ashley Livingston-Litwin, a former New Orleans native and resident. She had to leave her home in Los Angeles, the first time she had to do that since Hurricane Katrina. The Advocate said she recalled the chaos then — watching television reports of her New Orleans East neighborhood inundated with 8 feet of water.

Livingston-Litwin lost friends and nearly all of her material possessions at age 15. This time she grabbed her Emmy award for outstanding television graphics, her late grandmother’s ring and comfortable clothes to wear after giving birth two months ago.

“Like, what do I bring besides paperwork and passports? I literally could not think. I was mentally back in high school. It was very surreal,” she said.

California Gov. Gavin  Newsom said early recovery costs of the wildfires are expected to surpass Katrina’s $201 billion in damages, which made it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. But so far, the fires’ death toll is far below the 1,833 lives lost to Katrina.

Monica Sanders, a New Orleans native, who is a Georgetown University law professor and climate policy analyst, said the scale of the California fires is reminiscent of entire neighborhoods that were swept away during Katrina.

Sanders said a lot of people in New Orleans had flood insurance but not wind coverage, so they weren’t as insured as they hoped they would be.

In a related news report, The Washington Post said a growing number of homeowners nationwide, including those in Louisiana, are being dropped by insurance companies as regulators struggle to deal with the unpredictable and costly risks of climate disasters.

Wildfires, tornadoes and hurricanes are causing more serious damage because of climate change, which too many public officials in Louisiana and elsewhere refuse to accept as a fact of life on this earth.

Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at 337-515-8871 or jim.beam.press@gmail.com.

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