In an aerial view, flood damage wrought by Hurricane Helene is seen along the Swannanoa River in Asheville, North Carolina, on Thursday. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)
By Joe Saunders October 4, 2024 at 3:01pm
Whistleblowers in emergency management agencies say the federal response to the disaster of Hurricane Helene is turning into a disaster all its own, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz charged Friday.
In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Florida congressman demanded answers to questions he posed about funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency as it relates to the tidal wave of illegal immigrants who have flooded the U.S. during the Biden-Harris administration.
And he excoriated the agency’s response to the hurricane so far.
According to NBC News, the death toll from the storm had reached 223 by Friday afternoon — almost four times the number recorded a day after it made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida’s Gulf Coast on Sept. 26.
Hundreds of thousands remained without power, NBC reported.
And Gaetz, who represents a state all-too-familiar with dealing with the kind of deadly havoc hurricanes can wreak, said his office has heard reports from insiders who say the federal government is to blame.
“My office has been in contact with whistleblowers in numerous emergency-management functions at the federal, state, and local levels, and they all point to the same critical mismanagement issues,” Gaetz wrote.
“FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds, misappropriated funds, and left other federal, state, and local responders without deployment orders on the ground.
“As reported and further confirmed by my office, hundreds, if not thousands of service members were deployed by the Department of Defense to North Carolina and have sat idle, waiting for FEMA. We have confirmed FEMA employees deployed, on the clock, awaiting orders in hotels.
“FEMA pre-disaster aid was withheld, exacerbating the emergency. It is also public that [non-governmental organizations] have purchased airline tickets for migrants through the use of FEMA funds.”
It’s a damning description of an agency that exists to aid Americans in a time emergency.
But Gaetz’s next line was even worse:
“The aftermath of Hurricane Helene is a major disaster, and your waste and unpreparedness are leaving Americans in distress — unable to access food, water, or medicine — and expecting help, with none coming,” he wrote.
Megabillionaire Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X and founder the private space-flight company Space X, chimed in with similar criticisms.
Space X is the source of the Starlink satellite internet service, and Musk published a post on X with a note from a source he described as a “SpaceX engineer helping on the ground in North Carolina.”
Just received this note from a SpaceX engineer helping on the ground in North Carolina. @FEMA is not merely failing to adequately help people in trouble, but is actively blocking citizens who try to help!
“Hey Elon, update here on site of Asheville, NC. We have powered up two…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2024
“Hey Elon, update here on site of Asheville, NC. We have powered up two large operating bases for choppers to deliver goods into hands. We’ve deployed 300+ starlinks and outpour is it has saved many lives.
“The big issue is FEMA is actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own. It’s very real and scary how much they have taken control to stop people helping. We are blocked now on the shipments of new starlinks coming in until we get an escort from the fire dept. but that may not be enough.”
And all of this is coming on the heels of Mayorkas stating in Washington on Wednesday that “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season,” as the Associated Press reported.
The agency denies its funding problems for hurricane assistance have anything to do with the illegal immigration emergency — it says the money it spends on services for illegal aliens is specifically earmarked by Congress, according to NBC News. Likewise the funding it has for the kinds of emergencies FEMA was designed for is appropriated by Congress.
“No money is being diverted from disaster response needs,” FEMA declared on its website. “FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.”
That will likely come as cold comfort to Americans struggling with Helene’s aftermath — and getting a check of $750 from the government to “help.”
It also doesn’t explain the kind of mismanagement Gaetz’s whistleblowers describe — with hundreds of workers idling, on the clock, without direction. Nor does it explain the hindrance FEMA is presenting to non-government groups that Musk’s engineer reported.
In the post, Musk concluded with possibly the worst thing that could be said about an agency that exists to help Americans in emergencies.
“@FEMA is not merely failing to adequately help people in trouble, but is actively blocking citizens who try to help!” Musk wrote.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn’t need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American
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