Politico has a piece on another FEMA screw up that victimized the people of Puerto Rico following the destructive winds of Hurricane Maria. Walmart and other grocery stores had to throw out tons of meat, dairy and produce after power was knocked out and perishable items began to rot following the storm. Congressional investigators found that the stores’ urgent pleas for emergency fuel for their generators were ignored by FEMA.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) released details of the emails in a letter to the committee chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), on Tuesday. In the letter, they repeated a longstanding request for a subpoena to force the Department of Homeland Security to produce documents related to FEMA’s disaster response.
“Senior officials at Walmart took extraordinary measures to try to convey their emergency requests to FEMA,” Cummings and Plaskett wrote. “FEMA did not respond to requests for fuel as tons of desperately needed food went bad.”
On Sept. 25, a Walmart official said the company had two days’ worth of generator fuel left at its distribution center on the island.
“It is critical that we keep that going in order to preserve our fresh inventory,” the executive said in a text to a Puerto Rico official. “If that goes down it could take weeks to replenish which would have a big negative impact on the island.”
“Noted,” the official responded. “I do not know what is going on with communication in FEMA right now.”
Politico notes that in October Trey Gowdy and Cummings asked FEMA for documents related to their response to Hurricane Maria. DHS has been “stonewalling” ever since.
The lawmakers wrote to Chairman Gowdy: “We reiterate our request that you issue a subpoena to compel DHS to produce all of the documents we originally requested,”
Friday, Mar 23, 2018 · 10:39:35 AM +00:00 · Pakalolo
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, responsible for dealing with the effects of disasters like hurricanes and floods, has stripped the words “climate change” from the document meant to guide its actions over the next four years.
FEMA on Thursday released its strategic plan for 2018-2022. It replaces a version issued under former President Barack Obama that repeatedly cited the challenges caused by a changing climate, and the need for FEMA to incorporate those risks into its long-term plans.
By contrast, the new document doesn’t mention climate, global warming, sea-level rise, extreme weather, or any other terminology associated with scientific predictions of rising surface temperatures and their effects.
Brock Long, whom President Donald Trump appointed to run FEMA last year, has equivocated on whether climate change is real and man-made. “The term climate change has become such a political hot button that, I think, I keeps us from having a real dialogue,” he told Bloomberg in an interview last summer.
Hurricane Harvey Victims: More Than 20,000 Children in Houston Are Homeless, Report Shows
According to local reports, tens of thousands of Houston residents lack stable housing three months after the storm made landfall, living in trailers, tents, shelters, and in what the Houston Chronicle calls “barely habitable homes.” Over 22,000 of those without a home are children, while some 47,000 Harvey victims stay in hotel rooms paid for by the federal government at a tune of $2.8 million a day.
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Soon after the storm dissipated, the federal government approved a $15.25 billion storm aid package. Almost half of that money--$7.4 billion—went to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund. Those monies are meant to assist families and individuals resettle after the storm, offering financial assistance for those affected by the storm, as well as temporary housing options such as its hotels, motels, and trailers.
Nearly 900,000 people applied for FEMA financial assistance since September. So far, the agency has approved more than 353,000 of those applications, handing out $1.4 billion in grants, an average of $4,000 in assistance per family, according to the Chronicle.
But almost all of hurricane victims approved for FEMA’s long-term housing assistance programs have not been resettled.