Fire/EMS/ERs/disasters, etc.

[supesalemgr2]

Looks like Imelda won't even make landfall now. Fickle bitch.

Poor Appalachians are still hoping for FEMA money a year after Hellene. Meanwhile:

ICE Barbie Accused of Rushing Money to Rebuild Pier Near Alleged Lover’s Home

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem jump-started a stalled pier project in Naples, Florida, after a major donor called to complain.

The historic pier was badly damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022, and frustrated city officials had been trying for months to get disaster assistance funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is overseen by Noem’s Department of Homeland Security, ProPublica reported.

But after donor Sinan Gursoy got involved, Noem quickly expedited more than $11 million ($2M according to Friendly Fire Gnome) to rebuild the pier, which is a couple of miles from a home owned by Noem’s de facto chief of staff Corey Lewandowski, according to ProPublica.

Gursoy is a cardiologist - avg annual income $300-$600K/yr.
Corey Lewandowski net worth about $4M
Don't they have wealthy local friends?

Noem and Lewandowski have long been rumored to be having an affair, which one official with President Donald Trump’s administration called the “worst-kept secret” in Washington, D.C. Both have denied being romantically involved.

FEMA has come under fire for bottlenecks and delays ever since Noem implemented a policy requiring her to personally sign off on purchases of more than $100,000.

When deadly floods hit Texas this summer, Noem waited days to sign off on funding to deploy search and rescue teams, and thousands of disaster relief calls [went] unanswered because she hadn’t renewed the contract with call centers.

Sen. Ted Budd (R) has also complained about being unable to reach Noem’s office to get funding authorized to rebuild in North Carolina from last year’s devastating Hurricane Helene.

Officials trying to rebuild the pier in Naples, which is a major tourist attraction, were also getting desperate as they tried to navigate delays at FEMA, which were further exacerbated by Trump’s government layoffs, ProPublica reported.

“We were told yesterday that Secretary Noem would have to ‘personally’ approve the Pier project before FEMA funding would be obligated,” a city official wrote to Sen. Rick Scott’s staff.

When that didn’t work, Naples Mayor Teresa Heitmann decided to personally reach out to Noem and concluded that the best way to get her attention was through Gursoy, a local cardiologist who donated at least $25,000 to Noem’s 2022 gubernatorial campaign in South Dakota.

Naples is home to CEOs and billionaires, and is an important fundraising stop for Republican politicians, according to ProPublica. Noem visited the area at least 10 times during her last four years as South Dakota governor and has held multiple fundraisers there.

The MAGA corruption never ends.

... by Aug. 27, Naples officials were seeing a “flurry of activity” from FEMA, which said it planned to expedite the pier’s funding. Two days later, Noem flew to Naples and visited the pier with Heitmann before having dinner at a French restaurant with Gursoy.

She stayed through the weekend at the four-star Naples Bay Resort & Marina. Reached for comment by ProPublica, DHS declined to say whether the government paid for the trip.

By law, that is public record.

Lewandowski told ProPublica that he was not involved in the pier decision

Riiight.

and was not in Naples during Noem’s visit. Gursoy said “get lost” and hung up when he was reached by phone.

We are paying for your time, asshole.

... Experts told ProPublica that the Naples project heightened concerns about the discretion that Noem has given herself at DHS, where she had the power to inject political favoritism into an agency responsible for saving lives and rebuilding communities destroyed by disaster.

Which she does. DonOLD has been open about it.

MAGA = Grift, always. Feed the rich, nothing else matters.

"Pocket Change" donation. Do you feel the same about Soros' donations? Hypocritical!

[Vrede too]

TV news: Hellene damaged or destroyed 73,000 WNC homes.

I lived most of my adult life in a town with fewer than 73,000 homes in its entire metro area.

[O Really]

Even for things that one could, at least theoretically, defend, Trumpsters handle as poorly as possible. So it's not really my opinion, but I could argue that states and large municipalities should carry the biggest responsibility for their own disaster relief. But if you're going to do that, what rational person in the world wouldn't transition to it - giving some reasonable time for the states to make professional level preparations. Phase out FEMA over at least a three year period and provide some federal funding for state/local efforts. What sort of idiots think it makes sense to just pull the plug on money and resources already budgeted and planned for? Those would be idiots for whom cruelty is the the reason and the objective.

[Vrede too]

Even for things that one could, at least theoretically, defend, Trumpsters handle as poorly as possible. So it's not really my opinion, but I could argue that states and large municipalities should carry the biggest responsibility for their own disaster relief. But if you're going to do that, what rational person in the world wouldn't transition to it - giving some reasonable time for the states to make professional level preparations. Phase out FEMA over at least a three year period and provide some federal funding for state/local efforts. What sort of idiots think it makes sense to just pull the plug on money and resources already budgeted and planned for? Those would be idiots for whom cruelty is the the reason and the objective.

It's unworkable, regardless of transition time. We have an expert here who can tell us that it's the same principle as insurance. It's woefully inefficient for states and large municipalities to do full preparations for disaster relief. Most will never get used. Instead, FEMA operates on the expectation that there will only be a few disasters each year. It can then apply 100% of its resources to coping with them.

Dogmatic MBA Dementia Don is an idiot with no concept of fiscal rationality or insurance basics.