Tag Archives: FEMA

Arizona Central reports: The Federal Emergency Management Agency denied multiple requests for a mega-COVID-19 testing site in Phoenix, according to Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. Gallego said her office asked FEMA to implement a large-scale, drive-thru testing site — as they’ve done in other cities, including Houston — multiple times since the earliest days of the novel coronavirus pandemic. She said …

The Daily Beast reports: The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency urged health officials in “all states and territories” to provide “daily” updates on ventilator availability for the novel coronavirus directly to the data mining giant Palantir, according to emails shared with The Daily Beast and confirmed by FEMA. Palantir, co-founded by key Trump ally Peter Thiel, signed government …

Politico reports: The Strategic National Stockpile has sent out 19.1 million tablets of hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug that some doctors have prescribed to Covid-19 patients, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency confirmed. The tablets, sent out in two shipments, are heading to cities around the country. About 10.1 million are going to the Departments of Defense and Veterans …

Mediaite reports: Here’s how you know the coronavirus pandemic is really serious: Waffle House is closed. On Tuesday, the company announced on their Facebook page that they were closing an unprecedented 365 locations nationwide — over three times more than were closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The other 1,627 locations remain open, for now. The 24-hour restaurant chain …

NBC News reports: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is planning for the possibility that President Donald Trump could make an emergency declaration to bring in extra funds and personnel to assist the administration’s coronavirus response, according to internal documents obtained by NBC News. FEMA officials are preparing for an “infectious disease emergency declaration” by the president that would allow the …

NBC News reports: The Trump administration is pulling $271 million in funding from the Department of Homeland Security, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund, to pay for immigration detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum-seekers who have been forced to wait in Mexico, according to department officials and a letter sent to the agency by a …

Law & Crime reports: A former West Virginia county official who made headlines in 2016 for her racist online post about then-First Lady Michelle Obama was sentenced to prison Thursday for the embezzlement of disaster relief funds. Pamela Ramsey Taylor, 57, the former director at the Clay County Development Corporation, a West Virginia-based elderly non-profit group, was sentenced to 10 …

The Hill reports: President Trump is considering deploying a 1,000-person force usually used for relief efforts after hurricanes and other natural disasters to help staff overcrowded detention centers for migrants, according to people briefed on the matter. Trump is contemplating bolstering capacity by using the Surge Capacity Force — an entity created by Congress in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina …

USA Today reports: President Donald Trump directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to give Alabama the “A Plus treatment” on Monday after the state was hit with a devastating tornado that left at least 23 people dead. It was not immediately clear what that treatment would entail, but FEMA spokesman Crystal Paulk-Buchanan told USA TODAY that the agency is working …

The Associated Press reports: Brock Long, administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has reportedly resigned. In a statement announcing his resignation, Long said in part, “this has been the opportunity of the lifetime, it is time for me to go home…” Long said Peter Gaynor will serve as acting FEMA administrator in the meantime. From September 2018 report …

USA Today reports: President Donald Trump said in a Wednesday tweet that he is cutting off federal money to fight California wildfires, claiming the money is being wasted. State officials have accused Trump of playing politics with the California wildfires, and said he does not understand the issues involved in fighting fires. Trump’s declaration comes as he takes political heat …

Politico reports: Three New Yorkers are suing in federal court to try to halt a test scheduled for Wednesday of a system that allows President Donald Trump or any future president to send alert messages to the cellphones of all Americans. The activists filed the suit last week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, arguing that the system violates their …

NBC News reports: FEMA administrator Brock Long Sunday questioned the relevance of independent studies tying thousands of deaths to the aftermath of last September’s hurricane in Puerto Rico, echoing President Donald Trump’s criticism of those findings as Florence continues to batter the Carolinas. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Long defended the president for his response to Hurricane Maria last …

Fortune reports: Get ready to receive a text message from President Donald Trump on Sept. 20. But it won’t be a political message or attack on one of his perceived enemies—or at least, it’s not supposed to be. He plans to message every cell phone in America to test a new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) system that will allow …

The New York Post reports: As Hurricane Florence nears, FEMA will be keeping a close eye on the Waffle House — the fast-food restaurant chain known for staying open 24 hours a day every day of the year. The agency coined the term “Waffle House Index” during the 2004 hurricane season to measure the effect of a natural disaster on …

The New York Times reports: The Department of Homeland Security transferred nearly $10 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a budget document released by a Democratic senator late Wednesday night, diverting funds from the relief agency just as a major hurricane barrels toward the East Coast. The document, which was released by …

The Washington Post reports: The meeting was supposed to be about hurricane preparedness, as disaster officials gathered at Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters days after the start of the 2018 season. But President Trump had a lot else on his mind, turning the closed-door discussion into soliloquies on his prowess in negotiating airplane deals, his popularity, the effectiveness of his …

Trump hires the BEST PEOPLE. The New York Times reports: The mission for the Federal Emergency Management Agency was clear: Hurricane Maria had torn through Puerto Rico, and hungry people needed food. Thirty million meals needed to be delivered as soon as possible. For this huge task, FEMA tapped Tiffany Brown, an Atlanta entrepreneur with no experience in large-scale disaster …

Talking Points Memo reports: After President Donald Trump continued his tirade against Puerto Rico Thursday morning, the mayor of San Juan shot back and said Trump’s comments sound like they were coming from “a ‘Hater in Chief,’” not the President. On Thursday morning Trump again criticized the U.S. territory’s debt and infrastructure issues. He tweeted that FEMA, the military and …

The Washington Post reports: As of Wednesday, half of Puerto Ricans had access to drinking water and 5 percent of the island had electricity, according to statistics published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on its Web page documenting the federal response to Hurricane Maria. By Thursday morning, both of those key metrics were no longer on the Web page. …