THE Federal Emergency Management Agency Puts significant changes to the way it will react to disasters on the ground this season, in particular by finishing the reduction in federal door-to-door survivors in disaster areas, Wired learned.
A note examined by Wired, dated May 2 and addressed to the regional leaders of the FEMA of Cameron Hamilton, a senior official exercising the functions of the administrator, orders the program offices to “take measures to implement” five “key reforms” for the next season of hurricanes and forest fires.
As part of the first reform, entitled “Priorifying the assistance of survivors in fixed installations”, the memo indicates that “FEMA will interrupt the reduction of FEMA of FEMA not accompanied to concentrate the recording capacities of the awareness of survivors in more targeted places, the improvement of access to those who need, and increase the collaboration services with service services (State territorial) and non -professional services.
Fema has for years Staff deployed to browse door-to-door in disaster areas, interact directly With survivors in their homes to give an overview of the FEMA help request processes and help them register with federal aid. This group of workers is often part of a larger framework called FEMA's “boots on the ground” in catastrophic areas.
The end of the door to door canvas, says a fema worker, “will seriously hinder our ability to achieve vulnerable people”. The assistance provided by workers with door-to-door, they say: “has generally focused on the most affected and vulnerable communities where there may be elderly or disabled or lack of transport and are unable to reach the recovery centers after claim.” This person spoke with Wired on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the press.
FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Todd Devoe, the emergency management coordinator for the city of Inglewood, California, and the second vice -president of the International Association of Emergency Managers, said that during his years of work in the management of disasters, he saw how many survivors do not obtain information on recovery or resources without rack awareness – despite emergency managers using that the directing broadcasters and the elders of the radio and the elders.
“Going to the door, especially in areas struck by criticism, to share information is very important,” he says. “There is a need. It can be done more effectively? Probably, but completely getting rid of it will really hinder certain things.”
FEMA door jumping became a political flash point last year during the Hurricane Milton, when an agency denunciator alert The conservative news site The Daily Wire that an official told workers in Florida to avoid approaching houses with Trump construction signs. The former administrator of FEMA Deanne Criswell said The House Committee on Surveillance and Responsibility during a hearing last year that the incident was isolated for an employee, who had since been dismissed. The employee, in turn, said that she acted on orders Of a superior and that the problem was a model of “hostile meetings” with survivors who had Trump site panels.
The republicans of the supervisory committee allegedly alleged that they had received information indicating “generalized discrimination against people with Trump campaign panels on their property” throughout FEMA. In March, the agency licensee Three other employees following an internal investigation into the issue.
