The Federal Emergency Management Agency ( FEMA ) has been consistently in the news for two weeks due to the terrible destruction that Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton have caused millions of Americans in the Southeast.
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Former US president Donald Trump asserts that FEMA has been slower to deal with the natural disasters, particularly in the mountains of western North Carolina, where the storms have hit thousands of people who live in high-altitude rural isolation particularly difficult.
Trump asserts that President Joe Biden’s administration devolved hundreds of millions of dollars from devastation relief to providing free food, shelter, and additional support to the thousands of illegal immigrants who have flooded across the world’s empty territories since February 2021. This is a major contributor to FEMA’s delinquent response.
Due to FEMA never failing, as the former Chief Executive says, Biden claims that Trump is un-American and inadequate to return to the Oval Office. Alejandro Majorkas, the secretary of Biden’s Department of Homeland Security ( DHS), chimes in saying that FEMA has money to help with disaster aid efforts today but not tomorrow. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La. ) argues that Congress just last month provided an additional$ 20 billion to FEMA.
Two studies about all of this: As seems always to be the circumstance, first on the field of the worst climate crisis in decades was Samaritan’s Purse, led by Franklin Graham, son of the Reverend Billy Graham. What does Samaritan’s Purse know that FEMA does n’t know about getting disaster relief where it’s needed ASAP?
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Right behind Samaritan’s Purse came waves of enterprising Americans such as Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla. ), the Red Neck Air Force, the Cajun Navy, and hundreds of others responding to the cries for help. According to several reliable studies, these wonderful Americans were assisting in the most remote areas days before FEMA was anywhere to be seen.
Mills and dozens of others ‘ repeated assertions that FEMA was preventing these efforts deserve a thorough congressional investigation as well as a demand for really consequential accountability from bureau officials who were found to be a hindrance.
Second, regardless of who among the politicians is right about funding and response times and plans, the evidence is abundant, as Open the Books ( OTB ) recently documented, that FEMA is and has long been a bureaucratic disaster area.
OTB points out that FEMA has spent billions of tax dollars on disaster aid that it did not use in a recent DHS Inspector-General report ( here’s emphasis ):
The organization is required to use offers by a date. If the date is extended, FEMA leaders may provide a comprehensive written explanation. But FEMA has recently extended deadlines by up to 16 years for$ 7 billion of grants, sometimes without explanation.
For instance, FEMA allocated billion to assist with the Northeast’s recovery from Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The timeframe for using the funds was October 2016 but FEMA extended it until September 2026. $ 4.5 billion is still in use as of last year and is not accessible to storm patients this year.
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The disease that is FEMA administration becomes even more acute as one gets deeper into the IG statement:
FEMA extended 41 system periods of effectiveness or closeout bankruptcy periods without extensive documented explanation, as required. These initiatives total more than$ 7 billion in unreturned funds that could potentially be refunded to the Disaster Relief Fund. These extensions, in some cases, resulted in occasion being expended for administrative tasks that were either equal or greater than the consumers ‘ time to complete true fix or construction work by up to 16 years.
These problems resulted from FEMA Regional leaders not following the closeout procedure. Additionally, Federal regulations and FEMA guidance do n’t give the public any incentive to close grants in a timely manner or have repercussions for disobeying them.
billions of dollars in irrecoverable funds that could otherwise be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund may remain forced to state, regional, ethnic, or regional governments and are inaccessible for use in delivering relief in connection with recent disasters.
OTB pointed out that the bureaucratic rot has been present since at least as far back as 2001, which is not to say that the current Democratic administration is the only source of these issues.
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One wonders today if anyone in the nation’s capital or on the campaign trail has considered asking Franklin Graham to take a leave of absence from Samaritan’s Purse to make FEMA a place that every American can rely on in times of need.