Whistleblowers within the Federal Emergency Management Agency have come forward, telling Congress that ineptness, low morale, and lack of resources is hampering rescue efforts along the lowest eastern seaboard where nearly 200 have been reported dead and scores missing following the retreat of Hurricane Helene.

In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) wrote about his stunned reaction to Mayorkas’s previous admission that FEMA “does not have enough funds to make it through the [hurricane] season.” Conservative officials including Gaetz, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and others have accused the Biden-Harris administration of leaving FEMA without the funding it needs as a result of explosive government spending on the two-year-long migrant crisis.

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“My office has been in contact with whistleblowers in numerous emergency-management functions at the federal, st
ate, and local levels, and they all point to the same critical mismanagement issues,” Gaetz writes. “FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds, misappropriated funds, and left other federal, state, and local responders without deployment orders on the ground. 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. We have confirmed FEMA employees deployed, on the clock, awaiting orders in hotels. 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.”

In response to the revelations, the Florida conservative is demanding that Mayorkas explain how DHS and FEMA may have contributed to “wasted” emergency funds on illegal immigration rather than the safety of Americans.

If confirmed, Rep. Gaetz’s discovery would be at least the third sourced evidence that FEMA is badly underperfo
rming in search-and-rescue. Earlier this week, a private helicopter pilot from South Carolina told the New York Post that he was threatened with arrest unless he stopped conducting runs into the mountains to search for stranded survivors. Similarly, conservative journalist Glenn Beck said he has spoken with emergency management sources who told him that FEMA personnel on the ground appear more interested in confiscating unauthorized food and preventing non-FAA-sanctioned flights than doing the searching themselves.

Local officials including Georgia Governor Brian Kemp have excoriated Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden for failing to live up to the moment with just a month to go before the election. As the hurricane made landfall late Friday and into Saturday, Harris was just wrapping up a west coast swing filled with fundraisers and political retail stops. She visited storm-ravaged areas later in the week but continues to face persistent questions about whether she is doing more campaigning
than governing at a time of national tragedy.

Source: Tourism Africa