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North Carolina Mayor Exposes Harris Over FEMA Claim

By Updated: GOVERNMENT

A North Carolina mayor, whose daughter’s home was destroyed in last week’s historic hurricane, is blaming Vice President Kamala Harris for allegedly misrepresenting FEMA’s efforts to support residents. Derek Roberts, the mayor of Newland, which has a population of just 719 according to the 2020 census, is advocating for his daughter in an ongoing struggle with FEMA. In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, the small-town leader stated that his daughter’s request for a $750 relief payment was denied by the disaster relief agency.

“My daughter, whose house got completely wiped out – she has no flood insurance – meets with a FEMA person, applies for everything, doesn’t get the $750 that Kamala says she’s supposed to get. Gets approved for $300 for personal items. What is that gonna do?” Roberts asked in outrage. “Her entire first floor is literally wiped out,” Roberts continued as he described his adult daughter’s ordeal. “Everything hauled everything off. So where is FEMA?” The little money she was given, Roberts added, wouldn’t even have replaced “what was in her refrigerator” when Helene hit.



WATCH:

Fox News star Sean Hannity has been one of the conservative critics highlighting the limited efforts of locals to salvage their communities after the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene. More than a week after the storm made landfall along the southern East Coast, federal officials are still grappling with the overwhelming number of relief requests from Roberts’ daughter and tens of thousands of others. Earlier this week, Blaze TV’s Glenn Beck reported that he had spoken with FEMA sources who claim that officials seem more focused on shutting down makeshift helicopter rescue operations than on exploring all available options to assist those still stranded in small mountain towns.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, has publicly acknowledged that FEMA lacks the funds to last through the entire storm season, a statement conservatives have seized upon as they point to excessive spending related to the nation’s migrant crisis. In a letter to Mayorkas, Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) expressed his astonishment at Mayorkas’s earlier admission that FEMA “does not have enough funds to make it through the [hurricane] season.”

“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,” Gaetz noted. “FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds, misappropriated funds, and left other federal, state, and local responders without deployment orders on the ground.

“As reported and further confirmed by my office, hundreds, if not thousands of service members were deployed by the Department of Defense to North Carolina and have sat idle, waiting for FEMA. We have confirmed FEMA employees deployed, on the clock, awaiting orders in hotels. FEMA pre-disaster aid was withheld, exacerbating the emergency. It is also public that NGOs have purchased airline tickets for migrants through the use of FEMA funds,” he added.

Meanwhile, in a cruel twist of irony, Mother Nature is set to unleash a second, record-breaking hurricane named Milton on many of the same areas in the American South that have already been hard hit. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced plans to delay overseas travel and prepare for Milton, acknowledging the political fallout affecting Harris and the Democrats due to perceived mismanagement.

This timing is a regrettable distraction for the vice president as she prepares to embark on a week of unscripted interviews with mostly friendly news outlets, where she has struggled to respond to basic questions. Concerns regarding her handling of FEMA are likely to complicate those interviews further.





Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.