Federal emergency workers refused services to at least 11 homes after Hurricane Milton in Florida in 2024 because they had pro-Trump signs, violating the agency’s nonpolitical guidelines, a watchdog said in a new report Tuesday.
The Homeland Security inspector general said it couldn’t determine whether that sort of political targeting occurred in prior disasters because former Secretary Kristi Noem let a contract lapse and the contractor shut down the system.
The inspector general blamed poor training and oversight for the actions of a single disaster survivor assistance crew that skipped the 11 houses, saying the Federal Emergency Management Agency didn’t require crews to document why they refused to visit some homes.
Reports in the fall of 2024 raised the possibility that FEMA crews were skipping homes with signs backing President Trump, at the time a candidate for office.
Marn’i Washington, the FEMA specialist who led the crew tied to the skipping, was fired. She later justified her actions, saying she was told to avoid potentially dangerous homes and her experience was that pro-Trump homes were more hostile.
The inspector general said the skipping broke the law and trampled on agency rules.
“FEMA personnel violated policy when a [Disaster Survivor Assistance] crew skipped 11 homes with political signage during the response to Hurricane Milton in Florida. These actions eroded public trust in FEMA’s ability to treat everyone impartially,” the inspector general concluded.
The Office of Special Counsel, which polices violations of the Hatch Act, a law limiting politics in government actions, previously found Ms. Washington to have broken the law.
Some members of Congress raised the possibility that FEMA workers skipped homes amid other disasters, including after Hurricane Helene ravaged Western North Carolina in 2024.
The inspector general said data that could have shed light on the matter was lost.
It was kept in a database that the inspector general said FEMA at first refused to share. Then last September the contractor shut down the system that maintained the records about home visits.
“FEMA could not renew the contract because then-Secretary Noem did not act on the FEMA request to fund the contract before its lapse,” the inspector general said.
Under FEMA policy, those canvassing to offer immediate assistance can skip homes only if they have signs or markings warning against trespass or soliciting, or where entering would require scrambling over debris.
Political leanings weren’t a valid reason to skip homes, the inspector general said.
Another crew later visited the pro-Trump homes to extend offers of assistance.
Intense criticism of FEMA led to a new approach. The agency no longer sends crews door-to-door. Instead it posts up at a fixed location and invites residents to come to it.
“This approach aligns with the principles of locally implemented, state-managed and federally-supported disaster response, and allows FEMA to focus efforts on where they will have the greatest impact,” said Christopher P. Logan, FEMA’s associate administrator of policy, in an official response to the report.
He also said FEMA has instituted new training.
He disputed the inspector general’s claim that DHS blocked access to FEMA data, saying the agency doesn’t allow unfettered access to its systems.
