Fired FEMA employee says FEMA’s story wrong

Ah, yes, the FEMA supervisor who told employees in Florida to skip Trump-signaged yards. Was quite an uproar after Hurricane Milton over this.  FEMA basically denied, denied, denied, and claimed this supervisor was an outlier, doing this on her own, not representative of FEMA policy.

The supervisor, Marn’i Washington, was fired by FEMA after outrage erupted that she had instructed disaster relief workers canvassing in Lake Placid, Florida, after Hurricane Milton to “avoid homes advertising Trump.”

The Daily Wire first reported that government employees told the outlet at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags were bypassed from the end of October into November due to “best practices” guidance from Washington. The houses were skipped over by the workers, who wrote messages such as “Trump sign no entry per leadership” in a government system, per the outlet.

On Saturday, FEMA’s administrator on employee misconduct, Deanne Criswell, confirmed to Fox News Digital that Washington had been fired and called her actions “reprehensible” and a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of political affiliation.

Well, that seems pretty clear.

Speaking on an episode of the “Roland Martin Unfiltered” podcast Monday, Washington said her instructions complied with FEMA protocol to avoid homes determined to be hostile or dangerous to workers.

“They all allege that these actions were made in my own recognizance and that it was for my own political advances. However, if you look at the record, there is what we call a ‘community trend,’ and, unfortunately, it just so happened that the political hostility that was encountered by my team … they just so happened to have the Trump campaign signage,” said Washington.

I am guessing people mistook FEMA workers for potential looters? Either way, it’s a direct contradiction to FEMA’s executive pronouncements, and occured at at least two sites in two states.

Washington claimed that her instructions were given after team members had been verbally and physically threatened by hurricane victims with signs in support of the former president. She said her instructions followed FEMA’s “avoidance” and de-escalation policy.

In contrast to FEMA’s assertion the incident was isolated, Washington said there were similar “avoidance” protocols in place not only in Florida but also in North Carolina.

“Senior leadership will lie to you and tell you that they do not know, but if you ask the DSA [disaster survivor assistance] crew leads and specialists what they are experiencing in the field, they will tell you,” she said. “FEMA always preaches avoidance first and then de-escalation, so this is not isolated. This is a colossal event of avoidance not just in the state of Florida, but you will find avoidance in the Carolinas.”

Washington said she would welcome an investigation by Republicans in Congress.

“Please do [investigate]. They will find this is not isolated. I state this over and over again. This is colossal,” she said. “Demand for FEMA to give you those incident reports. They will substantiate what we are experiencing in the field.”Fox News

Are people with Trump signs more likely to warn strangers off? Or is there maybe a bit of projection going on? What would FEMA be saying if, when doing disaster relief a supervisor said “skip this house, the owner is black” – they going to claim “it’s just de-escalation”?

Either way, basing disaster relief on political affiliation in any form should warrant some sort of questioning.

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", None