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The political war over Hurricane Helene is heating up. Elon Musk is accusing FEMA of blocking his attempts to deliver Starlinks to areas affected by the disaster. Right-wing Twitter/X is full of talk about various incidents in which purportedly people coming to the area to try to help and/or deliver supplies are being turned away by FEMA. Also full of talk about FEMA using money to support illegal immigrants. Some people are pushing theories that FEMA is deliberately withholding help.
How credible is any of this?
My guess is that FEMA is a typical semi-competent government agency that makes many blunders. It might be bad at coordinating with random people who want to help but are not government employees and it might thus institutionally prefer to just block off the area and try to handle everything without random people's assistance. This policy then causes the various incidents that are being talked about.
I doubt that FEMA is deliberately withholding aid, if for no other reason than that I do not see how withholding aid would benefit the Democrats politically.
What do you make of it?
All these stories demonstrate is that the public has no idea what FEMA actually does. A friend of mine used to work for them, and spent over a year in Tinian working logistics in the aftermath of a Typhoon that barely made the news on the mainland. He told me that the only people FEMA will send to most places are administrators. The counties and municipalities handle the actual relief efforts, and above them is the state. FEMA's role is to provide funding, and the personnel they send are there to make sure the funding matches the planning that's done on the local level. They may provide an increased measure of assistance, but only if the localities in question can't handle it. That's why most of the direct FEMA work is done in places like Tinian, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, who can't really do it on their own. But FEMA isn't going to go into Florida and tell them how to handle hurricane relief. The states know their state better than FEMA and the counties know their county better than FEMA, and they aren't there to meddle. They may be doing a bit more than usual in Helene since the affected area isn't used to this kind of damage, but it's not like North Carolina isn't prepared to handle a hurricane. The posters below who say that no one has proven any examples of FEMA actually doing anything are probably right, because that's not what they're there for.
Hey, that's me!
If FEMA is just there to provide money, then they should actually do that instead of pleading poverty. And then get out of the way.
If the point of FEMA is to provide money, and they can't provide money in an actual disaster, then they have utterly failed. Seriously, just abolish the entire department and start from scratch. I can't think of any reason for this department as currently constituted to continue to exist. The buck must stop somewhere.
FEMA is not pleading poverty.
“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have." -Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, 2OCT24
FEMA is providing money. You can look at their monthly spending reports of how they allocate it for free.
How much is going towards third worlders settling in America again?
Out of the Disaster Relief Fund? Nothing, unless you consider Appalachia third world.
I never said disaster relief fund, I said FEMA. Why are you changing the conversation like that? Very strange Dean. We were talking about FEMA the whole time.
Because the conversation you replied to was about the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund, whether you wanted to change the topic or not.
No, we were talking about FEMA's ability to provide money for disaster relief.
To quote what you were quoting was responding to,
"If the point of FEMA is to provide money, and they can't provide money in an actual disaster, then they have utterly failed."
FEMA's ability to provide money in a disaster is derived from the Disaster Relief Fund. Which is providing money in an actual disaster, and is not unable to do so for the immediate emergency.
So FEMA is supposed to provide money for disaster, but cannot, but is somehow able to shelter and feed millions of illegal migrants? Interesting. How many people know about this? How did this strange twist of fate occur? Is all of this funding issues easily transparent to the common citizen?
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