As Hurricane Dorian Approaches Florida, Report States FEMA is Unprepared

A recent report by E&E News states that FEMA could have serious issues responding to disasters across the country, in large part because they've misallocated resources on smaller-scale events.

The report accuses FEMA of wasting over $3 billion and sending workers to hundreds of small-scale floods, storms and other types of disasters that should have been handled by state governments.

FEMA also allegedly faces a significant personnel shortage, with close to 75% of the workforce either already assigned to a disaster or unavailable for other reasons.

Former Trump administration FEMA Director Brock Long, who left the agency in March, said this: "FEMA is dying a death by 1,000 cuts. When (Hurricane) Harvey hit, we didn't have enough staff, in my opinion, to be able to deploy to the largest events. We were out in the field staffing too many small to medium disasters."

These allegations follow a federal report issued last year that showed numerous disasters in 2017 stretched the agency's resources too thin.

Also, FEMA admitted in its report on the 2017 hurricanes that challenges included a lack of staffing, funding, and supplies as it underestimated the impacts of Irma and Maria.


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