Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has promised that FEMA Director Deanne Criswell will be held to account for her organization’s failures in responding to Hurricane Helene.
“FEMA Director Deanne Criswell will be coming before the Oversight Committee and will receive the full Kimberly Cheatle treatment. Probably worse,” Greene Tweeted on Saturday, in response to a Tweet by Elon Musk detailing obstructions he had faced trying to provide Starlink access to beleaguered residents of North Carolina and Georgia.
The tweet continued: “FEMA is confiscating supplies, blocking help to Helene survivors, and using disaster relief funds to house illegals. Resign Deanne.”
In the week since Hurricane Helene made landfall, the federal government has been sharply criticized for its response, which has been compared to the bungling that took place after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The federal government has been accused of prioritising the well-being of Ukrainians and Israelis overseas, and of illegal aliens at home, over the residents of the Carolinas and Georgia.
Many have suggested the lackadaisical response may in fact be deliberate, because the areas worst affected by the disaster are all largely Republican.
There have been accusations that civilians attempting to provide supplies using helicopters and aid search and rescue have been turned away or even arrested for “interfering” in the disaster-response.
Multiple whistleblowers have now come forward from within FEMA to criticize its response to Hurricane Helene.
In a letter sent to Rep. Matt Gaetz, whistleblowers claim FEMA withheld pre-disaster funds and also failed to issue deployment orders to first responders, leading to critical failures in the response to Hurricane Helene.
“This news comes after FEMA has spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on migrants due to Border Czar Kamala Harris’ open border instead of prioritizing funding for Americans impacted by disasters,’ Gaetz wrote in a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas on Friday.
“My office has been in contact with whistleblowers in numerous emergency-management functions at the federal, state, and local levels, and they all point to the same critical mismanagement issues.
“FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds misappropriated funds, and left other federal, state, and local responders without deployment orders on the ground.”
Deanne Criswell was also responsible for coordinating the widely criticized responses to the disasters in East Palestine, Ohio and Maui, Hawaii.
