Just two weeks after Florida had been ravaged by Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Milton arrived on October 9 with sustained winds of 110-115 mph. Milton was a devastating hurricane that caused an estimated $34 billion in damage and killed 12 Floridians.
But what did a FEMA supervisor tell one Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) crew to do?
Breitbart News reported at the time that “Marn’i Washington, a FEMA supervisor, reportedly informed hurricane relief workers ‘verbally and in a group chat,’ to ‘avoid homes advertising Trump,’ in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.”
Not long after, Washington was fired.
Nearly two years later, a new Inspector General report has made it official that the then-Biden-run FEMA “skipped homes during the response to Hurricane Milton due to the presence of political signage supporting then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump, violating FEMA policy and the Hatch Act of 1939.”
“This situation eroded public trust in FEMA’s ability to treat everyone impartially, offer unbiased and consistent assistance, and ensure equal access to resources and tools,” the report adds.
“These issues occurred due to weaknesses in FEMA’s training, documentation, and oversight,” continued the Inspector General. “FEMA DSA [Disaster Survivor Assistance] crews did not receive ethics and Hatch Act training before deploying to disasters, DSA policies and procedures did not require crews to explain why they skipped homes, and DSA crew leaders were not required to conduct quality control reviews of survivor interactions.”
It’s important to point out that FEMA crews were already instructed not to knock on any doors with “no trespassing” or “no soliciting” signs, which makes sense. Skipping the homes of Trump supporters is indefensible. First of all, almost all of the violence we’ve seen since the Trump Era began has been committed by the left. Secondly, if you take the job with FEMA, you better do the job.
To their great credit, it was FEMA employees who made this scandal public, which is of some comfort.
In its write-up of the Inspector General report, the far-left Washington Post drops this without any context:
However, safety concerns during disaster response are common, the former senior official said, with most of the encounters that FEMA canvassers faced involving guns.
Well, what does that mean exactly, because a good-faith search came up with exactly zero news of even a single FEMA staffer shot while working in a disaster area?
Moreover, if you’re living in a disaster area with no electricity and no idea if the authorities have a handle on things, all good people grab their guns and are wary of strangers. So, I have no doubt many a FEMA staffer has been greeted by a resident wise enough to arm him or herself. That’s hardly a threat or a menace. Hurricane or not, every stranger who knocks on my door is greeted with a welcoming smile and a loaded pistol hidden behind my back.
So, we all know why this FEMA supervisor skipped Trump homes: hate. She hates Trump supporters, believes they deserve to suffer, and abused her position to justify and spread her bigotry.
All in all, however, FEMA handled this well.
Still, as someone who lives in Western North Carolina and saw his town socked by Helene two years ago, it is foolish for anyone to wait around for the federal government to come save them. We were on our own for at least a week before any noticeable help arrived. FEMA should be a state program, not a federal one.
