One part of trump's disastrous Texas flood handling

[Craig234]

Courtesy of Heather Cox Richardson, she explains how the incompetent and politically corrupt authoritarian regime is misspending money on the wrong political things, not serving the publie and of course lying - as they are destroying FEMA.

"On July 5, the day after the Texas floods hit, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) received 3,027 calls from survivors and answered 3,018 of them, about 99.7%, according to Maxine Joselow of the New York Times. But that day, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not renew the contracts for four call center companies that answered those calls. The staff at the centers were fired. The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or about 35.8%. On Monday, July 7, FEMA received 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, around 15.9%.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said: “When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase. Despite this expected influx, FEMA’s disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance.”

Marcy Wheeler of EmptyWheel notes that one reason Noem has been cutting so ferociously at FEMA is because she has run through the money Congress allocated for HHS with her single-minded focus on immigration.

In May, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called out Noem’s expenditure of $200 million on an ad campaign pushing Trump’s agenda and $21 million to transport about 400 migrants to Guantanamo Bay only to have many of them transferred back out. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Noem: “You are spending like you don’t have a budget…. You're on track to trigger the Anti-Deficiency Act. That means you are going to spend more money than you have been allocated by Congress. This is a rare occurrence, and it is wildly illegal. Your agency will be broke by July, over two months before the end of the fiscal year. You may not think that Congress has provided enough money to ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], but the Constitution and the federal law does not allow you to spend more money than you've been given, or to invent money. And this obsession with spending at the border…has left the country unprotected elsewhere.

Noem responded to Blumenthal that she was fulfilling a mandate. She told him: “The American people overwhelmingly in the last election said, ‘We want a secure border, we want to make sure no longer are the scales of justice tipped in the favor of criminals….’” A recent video posted to Facebook Reels by the Department of Homeland Security makes it clear Noem’s justification was cover for a violent Christian nationalist vision in which ICE and the Border Patrol are enforcing God’s commandments."

 

[roberthughey]

Courtesy of Heather Cox Richardson, she explains how the incompetent and politically corrupt authoritarian regime is misspending money on the wrong political things, not serving the publie and of course lying - as they are destroying FEMA.

"On July 5, the day after the Texas floods hit, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) received 3,027 calls from survivors and answered 3,018 of them, about 99.7%, according to Maxine Joselow of the New York Times. But that day, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not renew the contracts for four call center companies that answered those calls. The staff at the centers were fired. The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or about 35.8%. On Monday, July 7, FEMA received 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, around 15.9%.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said: “When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase. Despite this expected influx, FEMA’s disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance.”

Marcy Wheeler of EmptyWheel notes that one reason Noem has been cutting so ferociously at FEMA is because she has run through the money Congress allocated for HHS with her single-minded focus on immigration.

In May, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called out Noem’s expenditure of $200 million on an ad campaign pushing Trump’s agenda and $21 million to transport about 400 migrants to Guantanamo Bay only to have many of them transferred back out. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Noem: “You are spending like you don’t have a budget…. You're on track to trigger the Anti-Deficiency Act. That means you are going to spend more money than you have been allocated by Congress. This is a rare occurrence, and it is wildly illegal. Your agency will be broke by July, over two months before the end of the fiscal year. You may not think that Congress has provided enough money to ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], but the Constitution and the federal law does not allow you to spend more money than you've been given, or to invent money. And this obsession with spending at the border…has left the country unprotected elsewhere.

Noem responded to Blumenthal that she was fulfilling a mandate. She told him: “The American people overwhelmingly in the last election said, ‘We want a secure border, we want to make sure no longer are the scales of justice tipped in the favor of criminals….’” A recent video posted to Facebook Reels by the Department of Homeland Security makes it clear Noem’s justification was cover for a violent Christian nationalist vision in which ICE and the Border Patrol are enforcing God’s commandments."

Why rehire companies who do not answer the phones?

-------------------

FEMA didn’t answer almost half the calls it received for disaster aid​

By Thomas Frank, Adam Aton | 10/31/2024 06:35 AM EDT

FEMA didn’t answer almost half the calls it received for disaster aid

Hurricanes Helene and Milton have left the Federal Emergency Management Agency struggling to handle phone calls from survivors and maintain staffing.

www.eenews.net

 

[Craig234]

Why rehire companies who do not answer the phones?

I saw this post. The defunding of the call centers had zero to do with not answering the phone. If you read the post, it says the centers answered 99.7% of the calls. It was after she cut off the contracts for the call centers that the answer rate plummeted, because she is misspending the budget on unrelated immigration forces and propaganda campaigns, and cutting off the actual services needed. for idsaster victims

 

[roberthughey]

I saw this post. The defunding of the call centers had zero to do with not answering the phone. If you read the post, it says the centers answered 99.7% of the calls. It was after she cut off the contracts for the call centers that the answer rate plummeted, because she is misspending the budget on unrelated immigration forces and propaganda campaigns, and cutting off the actual services needed. for idsaster victims

There was before the Texas flood disaster.

FEMA didn’t answer almost half the calls it received for disaster aid.​

 

[Michael Cole]

I saw this post.

Amazing how you announce when you peek at an ignored member. You see nothing. Not even the fact that your thread is a duplicate. That's what happens when you ignore everyone who challenges your posts.

Will you see this post?