FEMA Slammed for Puerto Rico Hurricane Response by Government Watchdog

The federal government’s chief watchdog slammed the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to the hurricane that killed thousands of people in Puerto Rico last year, saying it was unprepared and failed to deploy enough qualified staff.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s report issued Tuesday said FEMA struggled with a record year for disasters on the mainland and Puerto Rico. Overall, the agency failed to adequately house disaster victims, distribute financial assistance in a timely fashion or do enough to prevent fraud.

For instance, scammers implemented “a well-organized and coordinated identity theft fraud scheme” in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and California that hadn’t shown up following prior disasters, according to the report.

The report’s criticism was especially pointed when it came to Hurricane Maria’s strike on Puerto Rico.

“They were not prepared to respond to an event like that,” said Chris Currie, the lead author of the report. “They were having a lot of trouble getting people there. And not just people, but qualified people.”

A report by George Washington University commissioned by Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello and released last week found that 2,975 people on the island died as a result of the storm. Other estimates have ranged as high as 5,000, but Rossello said the GWU figures would be used as the official tally.

President Donald Trump said last week that his administration “did a fantastic job in Puerto Rico” after Hurricane Maria devastated the island last September.

The GAO report acknowledged factors outside of FEMA’s control that contributed to the poor response, including the island’s distance 1,000 miles from the U.S. mainland, its outdated infrastructure and the “limited local preparedness for a major hurricane.”

But the response was also hindered by FEMA’s lack of adequately trained staff -including those who speak Spanish – the report found.

“FEMA did not have enough bilingual employees to communicate with local residents or translate documents,” GAO wrote, which “resulted in further delays while staff were reshuffled from other disasters to Puerto Rico.”

Even the fitness of those personnel was a problem. According to FEMA’s leadership, some of the personnel sent to the island weren’t physically able to handle the extreme environment.

The report described an agency stretched beyond its resources by an unprecedented sequence of storms and wildfires. Its staffing was down by about a third before Harvey hit Texas – which was followed in rapid succession by Irma striking Florida and then Maria.

At the height of the deployments, in October, more than half of FEMA staff were serving in a capacity for which they weren’t designated as “qualified.”

“By the time Maria hit Puerto Rico, they were down to the bottom of the barrel,” Currie said on a call with reporters.

The ripple effect eventually reached California. FEMA encountered initial delays in deploying personnel to the wildfires there last year because a majority of its workforce was already dispatched to support hurricane recovery efforts, according to the report.

It could take years for FEMA to dole out funding for long-term projects to rebuild storm-damaged infrastructure and other facilities. That is on top of $1.5 billion FEMA had obligated in public assistance grants to three states and two territories recovering from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

Administrative challenges in awarding those public assistance grants were tied to delays in removing debris, though the GAO highlighted bright spots where local and federal officials collaborated to overcome the problems. For instance, in Texas, officials hired military personal to help move debris when they encountered problems.

In response to the GAO’s findings, the Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA, said the agency “is constantly reviewing its program delivery, decision-making processes, and response efforts to ensure that it can improve, minimize errors, and better serve survivors.”

In July, FEMA released its own report on its response to last year’s disasters, and the policy changes the agency was making as a result. Tuesday’s report said it’s “too soon to assess the adequacy of these actions as part of this review and whether the actions will have the intended impact.”