By KEVIN FREKING Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told lawmakers Tuesday she has encouraged the agency’s inspector general to review whether an employee was acting alone when directing workers helping hurricane victims not to go to homes with yards signs supporting President-elect Donald Trump.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said a critical function of the agency is to go door-to-door and meet with survivors to make them aware of federal resources available. The employee, she said, wrote to about 11 staffers under her supervision that they should “avoid homes advertising Trump.”
Criswell said her senior leadership team provided her with evidence and recommended that the employee be terminated. She concurred.
“I do not believe that this employee’s actions are indicative of any widespread cultural problems at FEMA,” Criswell said. Still, she said she would support an independent investigation into the matter.
“The IG has not yet stated they want to investigate this, but I highly encourage them to take on this case and look and see if this was a widespread issue or if this was just a single incident,” Criswell said.
Criswell appeared before a House subcommittee investigating the federal government’s response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. She did so one day following President Joe Biden’s request for nearly $100 billion in emergency disaster aid, with about $40 billion of that money slated for FEMA programs.
It was clear that, while lawmakers were conducting an oversight hearing looking at the overall response by FEMA to the devastating storms, they were particularly focused on reports about the agency avoiding helping some Americans based on their political beliefs.
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., acknowledged that while the employee was quickly terminated, it was clear from an interview with that worker that she believed she was carrying out directions from the agency.
“It seems this particular worker believes she is being treated like the scapegoat, and if that is the case, more people at FEMA must be held accountable,” said Perry, who chairs the panel that held Tuesday’s hearing.
Criswell said she is committed to ensuring “nothing like this ever happens again.” In the meantime, a different team was sent into the field to contact all the homes that had been skipped over at the employee’s direction.
Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., whose district was devastated by Helene, said the agency’s response was bound to be a bit clunky because mountains are not a traditional location for such flooding. Still, he cited numerous breakdowns. He said the storm was essentially over on Sept. 27, and that in the aftermath, there were about 1 million people without power and 25 water systems destroyed. But he said it took three days before there was any real visibility from FEMA.
“For it to take three days before the visibility from FEMA is just not acceptable,” Edwards said. “There were folks in their homes not only without power, they couldn’t flush toilet, they had no drinking water. We were shut off from the rest of the world.”
Criswell said FEMA was on the ground before the hurricanes hit and she was proud of the work that some 22,000 workers provided across six states. She said workers persevered through the challenges presented by the storms and also misinformation on social media.
“We help all survivors, all people, obtain all the assistance that they are qualified for under the law, and misinformation is making that work much more difficult,” she said.
Some 7,500 FEMA workers were still deployed as of last week in states hit by Helene and Milton. Criswell asked lawmakers to ensure that FEMA and its partners have adequate resources in the following months, saying “the road ahead is long.”
She also testified before a second panel in the afternoon, with Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, asking why lawmakers should believe that the employee who was fired had acted alone.
“I understand your concern and share your concern,” Criswell said. “I want to ensure the American people know that FEMA is there to support all people, which is why we are conducting an investigation and why we have asked the IG to look into this further.”