Report: FEMA Official Instructed Hurricane Relief Workers to Skip Trump Supporters’ Homes

People gather at a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center at A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville
AP Photo/Makiya Seminera

An official from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) instructed hurricane relief workers to skip over the homes of supporters of President-elect Donald Trump, according to a recent report.

Marn’i Washington, a FEMA supervisor, reportedly informed hurricane relief workers “verbally and in a group chat,” to “avoid homes advertising Trump,” in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, several “government employees,” told the Daily Wire.

The government employees explained to the outlet that as a result of the guidance, “at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags” in Lake Placid, Florida, had been skipped. As a result, residents did not have an “opportunity to qualify for FEMA assistance.”

The government employees told The Daily Wire that at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags were skipped from the end of October and into November due to the guidance, meaning they were not given the opportunity to qualify for FEMA assistance. Images shared with The Daily Wire show that houses were skipped over by the workers, who wrote in the government system messages such as: “Trump sign no entry per leadership.”

The Daily Wire noted that the government employees had been “part of a Department of Homeland Security surge capacity force team,” and had “volunteered” to assist FEMA, which was understaffed in the aftermath of a “second major hurricane.”

One government employee explained to the outlet that they knew FEMA had been “short-staffed,” and the government employees thought they “could go help and make a difference,” adding that they were instructed to “discriminate against people.”

“I know they’re short-staffed, I thought we could go help and make a difference,” the government employee told the outlet. “When we got there we were told to discriminate against people. It’s almost unbelievable to think that somebody in the federal government would think that’s okay.”

The outlet noted that the government employees serving as FEMA helpers who were instructed to skip helping homes with Trump signs had been in Highlands County, “a deep-red area” that supported Trump by 70 percent in the presidential election against Vice President Kamala Harris.

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FEMA and the Biden-Harris administration have received criticism from residents in western North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene’s damage, in which communities in western North Carolina, southwestern Virginia, Georgia, Florida, and eastern Tennessee were left without electricity or cell phone service, had roads wiped away, and faced devastating heavy rainfall and flooding.

Residents in the town of Bat Cave told the New York Post that they had been left to fend for themselves and were primarily responsible for the cleanup in the aftermath of the hurricane, adding that they did not “care if FEMA” came by.

In an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters, Asheville resident Jordan Lanning stated that the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene was “too late.”

“It’s too late. I mean, they took too long,” Lanning told Watters. “They had — it took them five days to get here. I mean, it took five days for Biden to come here and he didn’t think we were worth coming down to see us himself, he had to fly over on his way to Raleigh. It’s disgraceful, they keep saying, ‘We the People.’ There is no ‘We the People,’ it’s them versus us. They’re not for us.”

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