Definitely a jackass that needs to be made example of. I was just continuing to highlight the breadth of reporting we've seen on the matter. Went from two trucks of armed militia, to arresting a guy for terror while armed with a pistol and rifle, to he's volunteering with a pistol on his side and rifle left in the truck. The latter from Fox, who even knows if he said those things or was volunteering?
My guess is this guy wasn't the only one, and what the National Guard radioed in was another group. Over in Tennessee this happened: https://www.wbbjtv.com/2024/10/16/w...rkers-in-a-small-tennessee-town-sheriff-says/ . Given the amount of crazy floating around, I doubt only one individual said or did something stupid.
Yeah that’s why I mentioned Georgia as it is most likely. Wasn’t sure, and didn’t really feel like googling, if it’s that or he had some summer home on Nantucket and is getting hospice there but I guess I was wrong in that thinking.
https://apnews.com/article/fema-nor...eats-militia-c1595fef596d0f78638ba4177bfa76af Couple of things: 1. No federal facility would allow guns, regardless of local law. You cannot, under any circumstances, bring a gun into a FEMA facility. If my staff sees someone armed, they are to call 911 and the security official onsite, immediately. This means that by virtue of bringing a gun onto the site, it wasn't a FEMA facility. If somehow security slipped up and let this happen, it'd be an entirely different news story. FEMA personnel are out and about, so it's possible they were part of the effort there, but it wasn't "owned" by us. 2. FEMA personnel in the field get threatened all the time. We have teams who knock on doors, we have inspectors who may be looking at damaged properties that can be mistaken for burglars or intruders. It's a common practice, and we are trained to show our badge and explain ourselves. There are also very common scams where people impersonate federal officials for looting, fraud or other criminal purposes. 3. FEMA gets blamed for just about everything going wrong, and that's fine. In the past few weeks, I was told about incidents where FEMA was requiring people to wear flip flops to shower, or FEMA was preventing access to some disaster area, or FEMA had told people they couldn't help their neighbors. It's all nonsense. The shower thing was most likely some tired shelter staff person who didn't have the heart to explain to some survivor that their clientele are usually homeless folks, and the showers can get gross, so they blamed it on us. The access stuff is usually where local police haven't issued an all-clear or lifted an evac order, or have to close down a site for some infrastructure work. This is done ostensibly to prevent looting, but also because they can't conduct search and rescue yet, or the utilities have some weird shit going on (gas leaks, live wires down, etc.). We get blamed for that, despite us literally having nothing to do with it. 4. Most of what FEMA does during recovery and a large amount of response has to do with reimbursement. So, there's a shit ton of people working on stuff, almost none of it has to do with us. All we need is a receipt. FEMA, by and large, does not "confiscate" anything, because we have no reason to. We can't direct supply efforts conducted by volunteers or the private sector. It works better if we're coordinated, but we would never direct resources away from an area in need. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the "real shit" happening with FEMA involves impersonation, looting/theft (what could be better than stealing shit and blaming the government??) and misunderstanding how feds work.
This may be beyond your area. But, outside of emergency recovery assistance, would FEMA be the organization to talk to if someone had a business that was devastated by the flooding? For instance, a friend of a friend owns a nursery in Traveler's Rest, SC that was destroyed by Helene. (The little plants and trees kind of nursery, not the baby children kind of nursery.) They set up a GoFundMe to try and help recover, and honestly, I think their GoFundMe is going to be a flat failure. But, I know the Small Business Administration (SBA) does loans and grants for these situations. Is that their best avenue, or could a department of FEMA help with that? I'm just looking to pass on a good contact for them to explore.
FEMA is prohibited from providing assistance to private sector entities, by law. There are some exceptions, like it was used as a shelter, or is providing a critical service to the public (think utility) but it's unlikely this kind of business would qualify. The SBA is the best place to engage, followed by USDA. There are some other avenues, so shoot me a PM. The kinds of assistance available to businesses can run the gamut, from disaster unemployment (so if their folks are laid off while they are trying to rebuild, they can refer them), to debris removal for anything particularly sensitive (like...we don't want farms just letting carcasses rotting), but it's pretty limited and folks can in trouble for dipping into the federal well.
so this is why the "Mattress Mack" dude in Houston was cool with turning his showroom into a shelter during Harvey (fema.gov link). Fucker has donated millions to the same political party that got us into this mess in the first place
I dunno about the Mattress Mack dude, other than that is a dope ass name for a 90's rapper. One of the most egregiously weird examples was a casino on a reservation, because they had all the backups and could host people comfortably. It's not a good look when the churches turn folks away, but most of the time there's an insurance provision against it if the power or water is out for a certain amount of time, that sort of thing. Bottom line: your federal dollars aren't going to a private business without a damned good reason. They are also not going to migrants (FEMA worked the border, but as a surge capacity force that was paid by CBP/ICE, not out of the fucking DRF....I know, because border states wanted Trump to declare it as a disaster, and we do grant shelters a lot of money. During the Trump administration, we were directed to grant shelters near the border additional money because of the "surge" of migrants, but found that almost no migrants were crossing the border and going to homeless shelters. FEMA money also doesn't get used for the same things when folks have insurance (no double dipping), but it can serve as starter capital, deductible money or in terms of housing repair, enough money for the home to be secure, sanitary and habitable...ie, emergency measures, not fully restored. I'm getting asked if FEMA seized supplies here or wouldn't allow volunteer organizations to serve meals there....I don't know, but it doesn't usually work that way. The emphasis is on matching need to resource, not shutting off a community in need. It's complex enough that I trust the professionals who boast decades of experience in these events to manage resources more effectively than someone on Tiktok with an axe to grind against the federal government.
yeah I mentioned him because he's very well-known in Texas -- does these big publicity stunts like "if the astros win the world series you get X%" off or some shit. But also he's a sleaze bag, and Harvey really brought out the sleaze bags. To your other example, Joel Osteen's church initially stayed shut during Harvey (opening as a shelter only after public criticism). That is awesome of FEMA to do though under rightfully specific circumstances. I've seen the value of FEMA firsthand in Florida, and how the immediate response and assistance can and does help directly. But I think it's important to remember the scope and scale of these disasters they're responding to. It isn't just like "these 5 towns, go knock on every door and make sure they're okay." It's like "these 500 miles of coastline, then inwards from there.)