FEMA blew out its budget to pay for illegals, now it's using its remaining resources to block aid from private citizens
Once again, Lahaina comes to mind..
It's not just the piddly $750 being handed out by FEMA to residents in North Carolina and other states whose homes were destroyed in Hurricane Helene. (A similar amount was handed out to residents of Lahaina, Hawaii, after their town was destroyed by fire.)
It's the lethal incompetence.
Just as cops taking orders from state government officials blocked Lahaina residents in cars from escaping the inferno -- the only survivors were those who defied them and drove through the blockades -- FEMA officials from the federal government are doing all they can to block the delivery of aid to people in the hardest hurricane-hit rural areas, where people need food, water, medicine, shelter and everything else and have been completely cut off from civilization. They're actually stopping them, as if they were trespassers and saying just trust the government.
That might work when people have time, but these hurricane victims don't have time. Their need for aid is immediate.
One aid worker explains why that may be, and it's a doozy of a story:
If you are wondering why citizens are being turned away that are coming to help NC and TN - you'll want to hear my experience as someone who has been doing this as a private citizen for almost a decade.
— Ryan Tyre 🇺🇸 (@ryantyre) October 2, 2024
I was able to get into, and out of Asheville. We brought food, water, fuel… pic.twitter.com/EO5NJRdTEN
It has the ring of truth. And private aid deliverers are experiencing things like this:
BREAKING: MyPatriotSupply is having issues with partners unable to get supplies to North Carolina because they don't have 'FEMA Persmissions' pic.twitter.com/gEYT6mZUzN
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 3, 2024
Here's a local official with the 'block 'em' bug, only acting on orders, of course:
ASHEVILLE NC POLICE NOW BLOCKING STORE OWNERS FROM SECURING THEIR GOODS BUT ALLOWING LOOTERS!
— DR JANE RUBY™️ (@RealDrJaneRuby) October 3, 2024
Officer Jose Amaya
Mayor @EstherManheimer
(828) 251-1122 pic.twitter.com/Q9wveTvc2l
This comes against the broader picture that FEMA is largely absent, something we have heard in many of the natural disasters over the last 20 years -- it is as if the job is just to big for FEMA, and most likely in this case, where the disaster covered an 800 mile swath of rugged hilly and mountainous land along with flooded valleys, it almost certainly is. Sure, these stories are anecdotal. But it's getting interesting how consistent they are, meaning, someone needs to get to the bottom of it once America has an actual leader.
American on the ground in Asheville, North Carolina after Hurricane Helene
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) October 3, 2024
“I'm down here on location right now taking photos, and I just wanna say I haven't seen a single hide or hair of our federal government.”
“I have ran into several Canadian line crews who are down here… pic.twitter.com/rgppPW2nup
There also are astonishing inefficiencies, like those big yellow school buses that went unused during 2005's Hurricane Katrina.
FEMA FAILURE IN THE SOUTHEAST
— Kylie Jane Kremer (@KylieJaneKremer) October 3, 2024
I was just alerted by friends in Greenville, SC that there is a massive failure by FEMA to deploy assets to assist those impacted by Hurricane Helene and they are feeling beyond frustrated and angry.
FEMA has 12 MEDVAC EC135 helicopters just… pic.twitter.com/rkW0ysisLd
Text from a doctor friend whose family lives in a tiny mountain town in north of Asheville that’s been destroyed by flooding: “People are getting insulin by donkey and FEMA’s response is $750 and wait for 3 weeks.”
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 3, 2024
How is this happening in America?
I have friends in Boone and Asheville and they say the FEMA and state response has been non existent. The destruction is massive and the horrible response is even worse. Now it makes more sense. https://t.co/HqPhjev9gS
— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) October 3, 2024
Inefficiency, waste and an absence of leadership all around.
That would be so even if they hadn't blown their budget on illegals, which Sens. Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and the very sharp crowd in hurricane-vulnerable Florida first noticed last May -- I wrote about that here.
But the blown budget raises severe questions about their priorities -- North Carolina's taxpayers paid into that federal program to help people hit by natural disasters, and FEMA chose to pay instead for the housing and feeding of foreign nationals who have no legal right nor legitimate business being in this country. That ought to be a firing offense and it would be if this were the private sector, or most any other administration than the Biden-Harris one, where incompetence is encouraged.
If FEMA can't do the job it's tasked with, and a disaster is unfolding, they've got a moral obligation to invite in any and all who can come in and help. That obligation is so strong it ought to be enshrined into law by Congress.
Instead, they've stopped helicopters delivering aid to the needy and threatened their pilots with arrest. They've made unreasonable demands for 'permits.' Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he was stopping private drones from spotting those in distress and even reportedly expropriated aid, supposedly to distribute it themselves, though we all know how those things work out. Using their scarce resources to hinder people delivering aid so that they can be the ones delivering aid, once they get around to it or can shake out more from Congress for it, takes away resources from those who need and have a right to that aid.
If this doesn't create a call to reform, or get rid of FEMA and start a new agency where aid is a priority, what does? FEMA seems to have turned into a monster.
Image: Twitter screen shot