- Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-NC, told colleagues in a subcommittee on Capitol Hill Tuesday that three days after Helene hit, FEMA officials told him they'd delivered 400 pallets of water to western North Carolina, but could not provide one delivery location.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell was grilled at a congressional Transportation & Infrastructure subcommittee hearing Tuesday about claims that the government agency isn’t doing enough to help Hurricanes Helene and Milton victims.
Rep. Rick Larsen, D-WA, pointed out that, among other problems, 11,000 applications have been approved for small businesses affected by the hurricanes, but funds in the Small Business Administration have remained depleted since last month. Also, the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund is approaching concerningly low levels with less than $5 billion remaining.
The discussion was at the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management hearing.
Larsen asked for House Speaker Mike Johnson to schedule a vote for Congress to consider President Biden’s $100 billion disaster supplemental request as soon as possible.
In addition, Larsen said he supports Rep. Dina Titus, D-NV, and Rep. Garret Graves, R-LA bill to create a universal application for federal disaster assistance, which would ease the process for disaster survivors.
He also said he was troubled by reports that 47% of calls made to FEMA during the week of October 14 through 20 were not answered and that of the more than 260,000 survivors who registered for FEMA assistance, nearly 50% have been denied.
North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-NC-11, testified before the subcommittee about how Hurricane Helene ravaged his district.
Edwards stated that he wondered if it would have taken three days to see any help from the federal government if this had been an attack on American soil.
“bureaucratic missteps”
He also said that on day three after the storm hit, FEMA told him it had delivered 400 pallets of desperately needed water to western North Carolina, but when asked where those supplies had been delivered, they couldn’t provide one single location, and deferred responsibility to the state which left local officials in the dark about where their resources were going.
Another major concern Edwards had was FEMA’s slow response in getting boots on the ground in some areas.
“In one county, FEMA didn’t arrive until over a week after the storm and it wasn’t until 20 days later that a disaster recovery center was opened,” Edwards said. “In addition, FEMA’s communication with local governments and the public was inconsistent and at times confusing. On one occasion, FEMA sent out a press release stating that a disaster recovery center would close temporarily without informing local officials, only to retract it hours later.”
He also said there were other failures, including FEMA personnel changes with little or no notice to county governments, no-shows for scheduled appointments, issuing hotel vouchers to displaced families that could only be redeemed at hotels two hours away from those displaced families’ work or school, and an inefficient inspection process that slows consideration of critical benefits. Edwards reported that his office has seen a significant number of casework issues related to FEMA’s individual assistance process.
While Edwards acknowledges that many of FEMA’s employees are hardworking, he said FEMA needs to be held accountable and improve its processes.
“The people of western North Carolina are tired,” he concluded. “The grief that they’re experiencing is compounded by bureaucratic missteps, delays, and poor communication.”
FEMA “avoidance” of Trump houses
One of the questions addressed at the hearing was the claim made by a former FEMA employee that houses with Trump campaign signs displayed were skipped over in both Florida, where Milton hit, and western North Carolina, where Helene aimed.
Marn’i Washington, the former FEMA worker who was fired after a text chain was leaked that showed her instructing colleagues to ‘avoid’ houses that had Trump signs in their yards, told The Daily Mail that FEMA is ‘lying’ about the scandal and making her the ‘scapegoat of a wider practice.’
She said she has proof that FEMA is lying and that other FEMA employees have also done the same. Washington also told YouTube podcaster Roland Martin that ‘FEMA preaches avoidance first, and then de-escalation.’
“This is not isolated,” she told Martin. “This is a colossal event of avoidance. Not just in the state of Florida. You will find avoidance in the Carolinas.”
Criswell testified at the Tuesday hearing that FEMA helps all survivors and was concerned when she heard about Washington’s directive to her disaster survivor team. She said that Washington was fired and that type of behavior would not be tolerated and is not a widespread problem at the agency.
“We do not believe that this employee’s actions are indicative of any widespread cultural problems at FEMA,” Criswell said. “FEMA, however, has taken appropriate action to ensure that this matter is fully investigated, and I am committed to ensuring that nothing like this ever happens again. In the meantime, we have sent a different team to the field to contact all of the homes that had been skipped over at this one employee’s direction, and that work has been completed.”
After saying that the matter was being fully investigated, Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Scott Perry, R-PA asked if Criswell would allow the Office of the Inspector General to conduct an independent investigation, to which she said yes.
During the almost two and a half hours of testimony, Criswell continued to deny any widespread issues with FEMA’s culture and said Washington’s behavior was an isolated incident.
Perry would ask Criswell if she would be interested in reprogramming FEMA so that illegal foreign nationals would not receive billions of dollars while US citizens struggled to receive funds for disaster relief. She would tell him that was how Congress directed her office to use the funds.
Rep. Marcus Molinaro, R-NY, asked her if she saw the absurdity in helping those illegally in the country ahead of citizens and the inequity of having taxpayers support a plane ticket, housing, food, cell phones, and access to healthcare.
Criswell would only answer that FEMA’s mission is to help people before during, and after disasters.
“I want us to be a welcoming nation, but if we cannot respond to those who are living in emergencies, then we do not have the right to claim that we are the Federal Emergency Management Administration,” he said. “When you spent some time talking with my colleagues today about misinformation, misinformation is freedom of speech, whether it’s true or not. But you know what fuels misinformation? The inequity that FEMA has engaged in because it allows for people to assume, whether true or not, a level of either incompetence, inefficiency, or lack of concern for those who are struggling the most when they see individuals enter this country illegally, and then are transported here, and receiving services.”