Hurricane Politics Aren’t New. The Level Of Danger With Them Now IS

I’m sure you’ve seen reports about the misinformation and lies that have hampered hurricane relief efforts. Ten years ago when I chose to transfer for work to NC I strongly considered going for a position out in the western part of the state. Asheville and its surroundings had a lot of appeal. I chose the Raleigh area instead, so I’m okay right now. However, from the start and in multiple states Trump and his MAGAs have been spreading lies about FEMA and federal disaster assistance. Serious threats have come about and there were recent reports of armed truckloads of ‘FEMA Hunters’ in western NC. The threat level was enough that FEMA actually had to pull back workers to safer locations!

As this article from ABC News indicates an arrest has been made. It turns out only one person was going around ‘hunting’ FEMA but that still doesn’t take away from the fact a steady stream of real and credible threats have been coming in. This is entirely the fault of Trump and his people and the costs can’t be measured. Trust once broken is damned near impossible to fully rebuild.  And it wasn’t that long ago FEMA was in fact highly trusted.

Not that politics haven’t become part of things. As the headline indicates it’s nothing new. Treating FEMA as a political tool goes back twenty years and I say that as someone who did two stints with FEMA during the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. Both were devastating. However like this year 2004 was an election year. Hard as it is to imagine now back then Florida was an actual swing state. Four years earlier in 2000 it took every bit of f**kery Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush could come up with in abusing his authority and state resources to deliver the state. Even then the Bush brothers had to rely on SCOTUS short-circuiting things to hand the Presidency to Bush 43.

For all their downplaying climate science the GOP brain trust knows damn well that warming oceans have played a role AND would continue to do so in the number and strength of hurricanes.  NOAA and other climate specialists predicted the 2004 hurricane season would be a VERY active one.  With 1350 miles of coastline (second only to Alaska) Florida was likely to get hit at least once, and odds suggested probably twice. (It would get hit with FOUR hurricanes and a fifth tropical storm also impacted the state) Looking back the creation of those huge new National Processing Service Centers in Texas and (Winchester) Virginia as well as another smaller one in Maryland didn’t just happen overnight. A plan was created ahead of time in case it was needed to process what would become an unprecedented number of claims for disaster relief assistance. And in 2004 that still meant people calling a call center – and folks like me on the other end typing their information into the system.

Florida would again be critical in the Presidential election and by god the administration would move heaven and earth so that Floridians could apply for and get disaster relief.  Had the state been Blue I honestly doubt things would have happened the way they did. FYI when hired on along with over four hundred others provided by Temp agencies we got a week’s worth of training. EXCELLENT training and when taken into the large room filled with long tables, those ones with folding legs that can seat four people on each side with eight stations each equipped with a laptop, headset and phone controller we were ready and able to help.

The next year things were different. When again as we all watched Katrina slowly making its way through the Gulf of Mexico with New Orleans in its sights the whole operation got ramped up again. Only this time there were only a couple of days of training. Plus a new, not actually ready computer registration process was in place. The latter turned things into a cluster-f**k those of us who got shifted (again) to Helpline Work would learn. The prior year when those of us selected to work the Helpline (again, with excellent training) were on the phone with someone minor issues could often be fixed with a few taps on the keyboard and the click of a mouse. Not so in 2005. Problems (freezes in the computer application process meant tons of ‘duplicate applications’ as people weren’t sure their request was in the system so they tried again) that could have been fixed with the click of a mouse weren’t fixable. Or rather we weren’t ALLOWED to fix them. Instead we had to fill out a form, and at the end of our shift drop it off with our supervisor who was only allowed to stay ten minutes past us to fix things. The stack in their inbox was always at least six or eight inches high!

However, Louisiana was a light red state and New Orleans of course was Democratic territory. Yes, Texas got whacked in 2005 but you’ve seen them take hit after hit and not just from natural disasters and they STILL vote solidly Republican.  So yes, speaking as someone with firsthand experience I’m comfortable saying serious politics got played with hurricane response starting twenty years ago.

We’ve seen more since. Times when Red state national politicians wanted to withhold appropriations for blue states. Of course they were complete hypocrites when THEIR state needed FEMA help!  They’d be shouting for Congress to act and RIGHT NOW THIS MINUTE!  Want a more specific example?  Hurricane Sandy did a number on the state of New Jersey just before the 2012 election. Like a week before. Their Republican Gov., the notable and often notorious Chris Christie was openly appreciative of then President Obama and his efforts to get FEMA assistance to his state. Christie committed the ‘unpardonable sin’ of thanking and praising Obama publicly, with Obama standing right there.

It’s why Christie never really had a chance in 2016. Every other candidate would take turns knifing him for ‘cozying up to OBAMA!’ back in 2012.  He could remain a major player in the Party but become its standard bearer?  No freaking way. Hurricane Politics.  Oh, and we have Trump and his taking out his Sharpie to redraw a projected hurricane path rather than admit he’d been wrong.  I could go on but this has gotten longer than I wanted.

What’s different now, and so dangerous and in more ways than one is the way Trump and others are politicizing THIS hurricane season. Their lies have made people who desperately need help to NOT apply for fear the govt. will take their homes away from them. Outrageous stuff and that’s not all. Hell, there’s even a conspiracy theory about the federal govt. taking an entire town and mine!  Both FEMA and state workers need to know who needs help and where. Services need to be restored. Food and clean water need to be provided. With cold weather around the corner in western North Carolina shelter will become critical. Yet because Trump is using FEMA as a political football people will needlessly suffer. And yes, some will DIE.

Yet it’s worse than that. As I mentioned earlier threats, a steady flow of them and many credible have become part of things now. During my second stint with FEMA I volunteered to get trained to deploy to disaster zones if needed. Sparky had crossed the Rainbow Bridge and the owner of the farm (she kept racehorses there) was fine with who could look after things for a few weeks if I travelled. However 2005 was my final year with FEMA so I never deployed.

What I can however say is that back then, and in fact until recently would never have imagined is being in a disaster zone wearing a FEMA shirt and/or hat would make me a TARGET for some MAGA asshole amped up on hate that flowed from Trump’s lies!  But this is what things have come to. Even an agency like FEMA, who like the Coast Guard “goes out” no matter what has to worry about MAGA goobers doing them harm.

Hate? For so much of my life it was something I didn’t experience. As an athlete I hated losing a ball game or competition but learned to deal with it. (Getting over certain losses is another matter) You deal with it and move on to positive stuff. Hatred of other people wasn’t really part of who I was. While I disliked some folks, both personally and public figures hate was a pretty rare thing for me. Trump has changed me. I will HATE that man until the day I draw my last breath.

What he’s done to FEMA and more importantly the incredible work it’s done since it was created is unforgivable. What he will do if he gets back into the Presidency is even worse. We now know he initially had FEMA withhold help because he didn’t want people in a blue state that didn’t vote for him to get assistance. It was only when aides showed him numbers of how many people in say that California area savaged by wildfires had voted for him he relented. In a second Trump administration Blue states can forget about FEMA assistance. Even Red states will have to prove themselves sufficiently loyal to Trump before getting help!

How the hell this guy still is polling the way he is stuns and depresses me. However it also makes me angry and if the anger and hate are what it takes for me to function every day then so be it. I’ll do all I can to help make sure it’s Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on the steps of the Capitol being inaugurated come January. The alternative is unbearable.

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