Tillis, Budd demand answers from FEMA on efforts in western North Carolina

North Carolina Republican US Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd led a letter this week with 17 of their Senate colleagues to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell. The letter seeks answers on allegations that FEMA employees were advised to avoid homes that had Trump yard signs, not only in Florida after Hurricane Milton, but possibly in western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene. The story has raised grave concerns over potential widespread politicization of disaster relief.  

“FEMA’s mission is ‘helping people before, during, and after disasters.’ When a natural disaster overwhelms state and local resources,” the letter starts. “FEMA is the option of last resort to help American families rebuild their lives in times of great distress and upheaval. For a FEMA employee to withhold aid or support from a household due to political affiliation is unacceptable and frankly reprehensible.”

This comes after Criswell was grilled at a congressional Transportation & Infrastructure subcommittee hearing Tuesday about the claims.

Marn’i Washington, the former FEMA worker who was fired after a text chain was leaked that showed her instructing colleagues to ‘avoid’ houses that had Trump signs in their yards, told The Daily Mail that FEMA is ‘lying’ about the scandal and making her the ‘scapegoat of a wider practice.’

She said she has proof that FEMA is lying and that other FEMA employees have also done the same. Washington also told YouTube podcaster Roland Martin that ‘FEMA preaches avoidance first, and then de-escalation.’

“This is not isolated,” she told Martin. “This is a colossal event of avoidance. Not just in the state of Florida. You will find avoidance in the Carolinas.”

The senators acknowledged that while many dedicated public servants are working around the clock to help disaster survivors at their most vulnerable point, it is ‘clear that FEMA has fallen well short of its core mission to provide disaster relief to all Americans impacted by a natural disaster.’

“While we appreciate your swift condemnation of these actions and termination of the responsible employee, your former employee has made subsequent claims that this was not an isolated incident, even happening in Western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene brought devastating rains and floods the likes of which we have never seen,” the letter continues. “The idea that citizens, whose tax dollars fund FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) and pay FEMA officials’ salaries, may be purposely excluded from vitally needed aid is chilling and further erodes many people’s already tenuous trust in this administration.”

Criswell claimed in her testimony that this was an isolated incident and not a widespread problem with the culture at FEMA.

The senators concluded that they have set a deadline of Dec. 3 for the agency to answer questions about its accountability and transparency.

Tillis, visibly moved with emotion, testified Wednesday before the US Senate Committee on Appropriations Wednesday at a hearing reviewing disaster funding needs.

He told his colleagues he didn’t think he could get through his testimony without shedding a tear.

He called Hurricane Helene a storm unlike any we’ve ever seen in our nation’s history.

“102 lives lost, 151 homes destroyed, 500,000 businesses affected in disaster declared areas, 5000 miles of roads,” he started.  “This is North Carolina statistics, ladies and gentlemen. Five thousand miles of roads, including almost five miles of I-40 damaged and impassable for likely a couple of years, 1300 public bridges and culverts damaged, 163 water and sewer systems damaged 20,000 farms, disaster declared counties with $3.4 billion in damage.”

Budd spoke Wednesday on the Senate floor about the heroes of Helene, including Bat Cave’s Fire Chief Steve Freeman, who, after having his own near-death experience, began working for the safety of his community as he went to work when he and his firefighters mapped out the area and they started digging people out.

“Chief Freeman is one of the hundreds of heroic North Carolinians who leapt into harm’s way to help others,” Budd said. “That’s the thing about the people of western North Carolina. They’re not just tough, they’re mountain tough.”

Budd was also disturbed to hear reports on the ground that people are still struggling to get in touch with FEMA representatives.

He said times like these are precisely why Congress shouldn’t overspend or waste taxpayer dollars, and in more prosperous times, like any family or small business, they ought to be saving for a rainy day.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that rainy day is today,” Budd stated.

He said the temperatures are falling fast in western North Carolina, with many people in real danger of facing a winter without heat because the storm destroyed the area’s only kerosene station. People living in shelters with only the clothes on their backs and small shops, hotels, and restaurants that rely on tourism to operate will be forced to shutter forever.  

He also talked about large sections of I-40 that are still impassable, small mountain roads that are damaged beyond repair, and about the communities that are mourning the losses of first responders and law enforcement officers.

Being stunned by ‘the enormity of the damage ‘while in places like Hot Springs, Marshall, Burnsville, Swannanoa, and Chimney Rock, Budd said it was unlike anything he had ever seen, and it’s not a situation where the government has the luxury of delaying action for another few weeks or after a long recess. Citizens of western North Carolina need help, and they need it now. He urged Congress to pass a supplemental bill to help fund hurricane recovery.

“This is why these men and women pay their taxes,” he said. “This is their right as Americans, and we can’t leave them behind. I believe, after having many conversations around the state, that that’s their greatest fear, of being forgotten, and I’ll make my promise not to ever forget them.  My promise to the people of western North Carolina is this: I will do everything in my power to see that you have the federal resources you need to recover and to rebuild.”

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