FEMA Whistleblowers Allege Waste, Including Deployed Employees Sitting Idle in Hotels
I want to know why FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund is missing vital cash.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) alerted DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that FEMA whistleblowers told his office about alleged waste and mismanagement, leading to the agency running out of money.
The federal government has failed miserably in helping those affected by Hurricane Helene.
Mayorkas caused more trouble when he said FEMA doesn’t have enough money.
The letter doesn’t provide many specifics. I doubt Mayorkas will give any answers soon.
“FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds, misappropriated funds, and left other federal, state, and local responders without deployment orders on the ground,” wrote Gaetz. “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.”
Gaetz continued: “We have confirmed FEMA employees deployed, on the clock, awaiting orders in the hotel. FEMA pre-disaster aid was withheld, exacerbating the emergency. It is also public that NGOs have purchased airline tickets for migrants through the use of FEMA funds.”
Gaetz wants Mayorkas to answer these questions by October 11:
- (1) What policies and regulations of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA prevent emergency funds from being wasted on illegal immigrants, including what conditions are placed on grantees of the agency?; and
- (2) Of FEMA’s total budget for FY 2024, what portion of funds can be guaranteed to have been spent solely on American citizens, and what portion of funds was or may have been spent on noncitizens?; and
- (3) In FY 2024, what portion of funds in the Disaster Relief Fund have been spent on non-disaster-relief programs, such as providing services to illegal aliens or providing routine training to FEMA employees authorized out of general appropriations?
BREAKING: FEMA whistleblowers have come forward alleging that the agency misappropriated funds in the wake of Helene, withheld pre-disaster aid, and that first responders and service members have been waiting in hotels without deployment orders. pic.twitter.com/uf0XrspRTz
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 4, 2024
FEMA has denied accusations that it spent millions on illegal aliens.
Well, FEMA has the Shelter and Services Program (SSP):
The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) provides funding to non-federal agencies to spend on humanitarian services for non-U.S. citizens. For the 2024 fiscal year, which ended on Monday, $640 million was made available.
The FEMA website says this funding is intended to “support CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) in the safe, orderly and humane release of noncitizen migrants from short-term holding facilities.” The money can be spent on a range of services, including food, shelter, transportation, acute medical care, clothing and translation services.
The budget for the past year was a significant increase from the 2023 fiscal year, when $363 million was allocated. Together, more than $1 billion has been spent on non-citizen services over the past two years.
Honestly, the amount is minuscule since the FEMA has a $33.1 billion budget for FY 2025.
That fact makes the whistleblowers’ accusation more interesting.
FEMA has the money, but how is the Disaster Relief Fund missing money? That’s a rhetorical question because we know.
Yeah, the government totally only uses the amount allocated for specific programs:
FEMA’s fiscal 2025 budget also included $22.7 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), which mostly covers costs for previously declared disasters. This pot does not cover potential future events, given that they are unpredictable.
“As in prior years, the budget assumes future catastrophic events during the budget year will be funded separately with emergency supplemental appropriations,” a FEMA report said in March.
Hurricane Helene struck at the end of one fiscal year and the beginning of another, while Congress was also in the middle of budget negotiations to avoid a government shutdown, complicating the funding troubles.
The DRF was recently facing a $2 billion deficit, far higher than the $650 million allocated to SSP, and that was before Helene made landfall.
Unfortunately, Congress left out the DRF in the continuing resolution to keep the government open.
Well, Republicans also voted against adding more money to DRF…including Gaetz.
But still. Where is the missing money? These are valid questions.
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“The Stench is Unbearable”: Dead Bodies Piling Up, FEMA Abandons NC Residents Amid Hurricane Helene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSQ31_xFils
It’s not good. I haven’t heard from friends over there since Saturday. FEMA has become a woke disaster prioritizing “equity” and DEI as job #1 much like the rest of Biden/Harris’s administration the peons in flyover be damned.
https://palmettostatewatch.com/left-to-die-government-abandons-cuts-off-aid-to-hurricane-victims/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFtHLVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHaYez_rgWwD7-MgNj-hOWNW31Dnwxp9osH148tBlVbkFEJrYTSPwdmd-2A_aem_9Ph3tcnR-hQULutHCdaA2g
After Trump disbands the Department of Education, FEMA should be disbanded as well. Nothing they do can’t be equally or better done at the state level (and by that I mean a bunch of rednecks with pickup trucks and fishing boats – and please understand I mean that as a reverential compliment).
I said it yesterday and I continue to think the hurricane is the final nail in the Harris campaign coffin and the first in that of the Deep State.
Everything done by a federal agency should be done at the state level.
What makes you think Trump is going to disband the department of education? Every GOP president since Reagan has promised it. Nothing has been done. Same for corporation for public broadcasting, national endowment for the Arts, and Amtrak.
Unfortunately, Presidents can’t unilaterally dissolve a cabinet department because cabinet departments can only be established (and subsequently unestablished) legislatively. Republicans would need a Super Majority to do something like that…and in reality, that likely means 70-votes because of so many GOP Senators who aren’t really Republicans much less conservatives.
I also doubt Trump will disband any of these, but I wish he would, at least, start the conversation. Many people would (incorrectly) claim that a DEPARTMENT, such as the Department of Education, is a necessary part of government, but it would be much more difficult to claim the same for the National Endowment for the Arts or for PBS. For those, Trump should state that those who want such programs should be the ones to support them, on a voluntary basis. For the rest of the citizens, the programs are to no longer receive taxpayer support. Whatever amount is voluntarily contributed toward such programs become their respective operating budgets. This would be much more fiscally responsible.
Get rid of DHS, the head of that particular snake.
The bigger more immediate issue seems to be FEMA and some local gov’t agencies throwing their weight around to disrupt the active S&R and other relief operations of private groups and in essence confiscating donated relief items by demanding the goods be placed under FEMA control for future distribution. If the reports making these claims are accurate (there are a huge number of them all following the same pattern) then FEMA and a few local gov’t hot shots need to do some ‘splainin….use of buzzwords like ‘coordinated efforts’, ‘centralized planning’, ‘unified control’ and so on won’t cut it. Especially when they’ve been sitting on their ass while private groups rolled up their sleeves to do the heavy lifting.
Maybe they can do their explaining while they attend a necktie party.
Colombian necktie party.
I’d be more inclined to support a televised blanket party with all the people up that way who are screwed because Mayorkas and Biden think illegals are more important than American citizens holding the socks full of cans of Coke.
It would probably be a better idea for the bureaucracy to start convincing folks via their actions well before they get involuntarily delivered to a party at which they will be the unwilling central attraction. Once that particular party gets rocking it’s liable to get well out of hand so my advice is for the bureaucracy to avoid sending out invitations via their own incompetence, ignorance and intransigence. Way better for everyone if that party doesn’t begin.
Where is Winnie Mandela when you need her?
Necklace? Too slow a burn
I’m so old. I remember life before FEMA. Somehow, some way, people got together and figured out how to cure the problems that they face. They did not need some overpaid bureaucrats in Washington showing them what to do.
“Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we
should soon want bread.” –Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821.
I also recall some quote about if the government ran the desert within 5 years we’d have a sand shortage.
With the feral government running this sh*tshow we may well see a shortage of strategic sand from Spruce Pine!
Milton Friedman.
You laugh, but there is already a worldwide shortage of sand suitable for concrete. Search for “global sand shortage”.
Who’s laughing?
Honestly, the amount is minuscule since the FEMA has a $33.1 billion budget for FY 2025.
THIS, exactly. We’ve only had – what – two named storms this year, maybe three? Whatever it was, only two caused any real damage and they’ve exhausted more than $33.1B? It’s insane.
Fema has 22,000 employees. Why? Why does the federal agency that deals with ’emergencies’ have 22,000 employees when ALL the actual work in these disasters is done by uniformed service members or local/state employees?
Lastly, if it’s true the alien assistance program is a separate budget allocation, it’s just more fuel to the fire that Mike Johnson needs to go. He’s worthless. The House is the half of Congress that controls the purse strings.
Mayorkas is like Hunter on steroids.
“Daddy, can you help me out? I spent the rent money on
hookers and blowchild slaves and fentanyl again.”They should be beaten out of him.
Seriously … can the morons in Congress who refused to convict Mayorkas the last time get be shamed into convicting this treasonous POS, finally?? Mayorkas should be impeached this minute. And if Traitor Schumer and the despicable Senate dems refuse to take it up and ignore it then just impeach the POS again. And again and again.
We have had these traitors running America into the ground and our representatives in the House have done nothing to stop any of them. All Mike Johnson cares about is passing CRs with dem support so that the America-haters can continue taking this nation apart. It’s pathetic.
I dealt with FEMA goons after Hurricane Hugo while holding down the desk as a motel clerk in Florence, SC back in 1989-90.
They were far from compassionate, arrogant, threatening and filled the whistleblower’s description to a T.
What unnerves me is the power FEMA holds. It is very ugly.
“Deployed Employees Sitting Idle in Hotels”
You’re lucky they were FEMA, not BATF, or they might have been whiling away their idle hours disconnecting your fire alarms and cutting gloryholes into each others’ rooms.
This is what happens when government measures ‘success’ as ‘how many people are there’ rather than what those people are actually doing.
For instance, if you set up a location to feed people, you SHOULD be tracking how meals are served. Instead, FEMA tracks how many people they have serving the meals.
They also just track stuff they SEND to the ‘disaster location’, rather than stuff that they actually give to people that need it.
That’s how infamously there was a runway in Puerto Rico after the storm that had stacks of pallets of water that they unloaded next to the runway and then just left there.
Same problem as the government schools.
I remember that, they put tarps over the pallets and never moved them
In fairness to FEMA the local govt/State Govt are supposed to do the heavy lifting and ‘last mile’ distribution. In PR the Feds got all sorts of resources in there very quickly but the locals had no plan to get it into the countryside. I had friends on that mission and from what I was told there was a sort of prestige problem where a particular Mayor would assume the supplies were for ‘their’ City not for further distro outside the City which was just supposed to be a staging point.
Here we have reports the FEMA folks are trying to direct operations themselves v support State/Local leadership. Volunteers and massive private donations of relief supplies always show up. That’s part of what makes the USA a good place but this time it appears no plan is in place to incorporate these private efforts into the larger operation.
Tell that to the locals with skid steers, ATVs, and mules.
Tell the locals what….That their volunteer efforts are 100% necessary, should be both appreciated and incorporated into the overall plan by govt emergency response? I already did.
The issue here is lack of ability to ‘audible’ at the line by whoever is running disaster relief ops in NC. Volunteers always show up, do a good job and bring needed supplies along with labor and equipment. Gotta be able to incorporate that contribution into the plan. Can’t treat volunteers like they are employees. The volunteers ain’t gonna be there for months some will be there a week or less. Got to be able to help them spend that limited time doing productive things to assist and certainly not treat them as unwelcome interlopers.
NC relief efforts seem to be a problem v TN, GA, and FL. NC efforts appear to be chaotic and unorganized. The impression I get is that whoever is supposed to be in charge on the ground in NC has been overwhelmed and is trying to halt ops to get a handle on things aka have a meeting to make a pretty ‘story board’. Maybe I’m wrong.
Because there is plenty of superfluous cash around.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1842284913279586447
I read a document today where less than 1% of the residents in the North Carolina area with the most damage have FEMA flood insurance. That program is saving many millions if not billions by not having to pay flood insurance claims.
That most likely is true for the same reason I don’t have flood insurance. I’m not in a flood prone area. The storm was a 1,000 yr storm and totally unpredicted as for the severity. Flood insurance is rather useless if your house is 20ft about a river and it’s swept away in a mudslide.
“FEMA Whistleblowers Allege Waste, Including Deployed Employees Sitting Idle in Hotels”
I’m sure they are very nice hotels. Nothing but the finest for Our Betters in Government.
Griz can contradict me if he’s seeing different.
I’m not seeing or hearing it locally. The MyGreenevilleToo FB group is usually full of the people who spend too much time on FB – but I’m just not seeing the FEMA abuse. I’m also not seeing FEMA doing much to help either. Support and pitching in is 99% local first responders and also private. Church’s, restaurants, businesses- they are all stepping up. Farmer’s daughter on the 107 (our favorite, also Menonite I believe)- go look it up is feeding people for next couple days. There’s sure to be some grifting as there’s no shortage of trash people in any community- but by and large- it’s neighbors helping neighbors. If FEMA were there, they’d be in the way. There was a call for extension cords and bottled soft drinks- and in a day they had thousands of both. If you drive around the area here- the local virtue signaling is bible verses. No Ukraine flags, no “we believe” crap.
I saw the rumor of donations etc being confiscated, but not seeing it in local news. Distribution is the hardest part- so the random “giving” can be difficult to get to where it needs to go.
So don’t get too caught up in panic porn on major outlets. It’s bad, and I don’t doubt the feds are effing off with the money. But on the ground this is a bunch of people who are self sufficient.
Here’s a sample….. it’s THIS x 1000
MY GREENEVILLE TOO
Keith Wiggins · 47m ·
A friend in Texas is coordinating 2 tractor trailers full of relief items to bring to TN and or NC. They have water, toiletries, diapers, etc, but need a church or other non-government point of contact of where they can bring these trucks and at locations they can reach by truck. They want to be sure they are going to be able to reach people who really need this. If anyone has solid information that I can relay to her please post in comments. Thank you!