If American’s weren’t sufficiently angered by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre falsely claiming that purportedly “money-drained” FEMA didn’t funnel BILLIONS to various leftist “sanctuary city” migrant projects (something the U.S. government likely will continue to do) to give them free housing, medicine, and food, then the accumulating and accelerating reports of FEMA and the feds literally BLOCKING private rescue and aid in the Hurricane Helene damage zones might push that anger to rage.
The reports are numerous, and they reveal a pattern of bureaucratic arrogance and foolishness that goes back to the FEMA-worsened mess of Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, circa 2005.
Certainly, the chaos of any storm zone can complicate both attempts to provide aid and attempts to communicate among those trying to help. But the sheer volume and intensity reported FEMA blocks against private help and FEMA hesitation because of bureaucratic burdens are stunning.
Elon Musk and others tied to his Starlink satellite-to-dish communications system have been on the ground and over the ground, and here are just a few of his X posts about the trouble FEMA is causing. In the mid-afternoon of October 4, Musk posted:
“SpaceX engineers are trying to deliver Starlink terminals & supplies to devastated areas in North Carolina right now and @FEMA is both failing to help AND won’t let others help. This is unconscionable!! They just took this video a few hours ago, where you can see the level of devastation: roads, houses, electricity, water supply and ground Internet connections completely destroyed. @FEMA wouldn’t let them land to deliver critical supplies … my blood is boiling …”
Others swiftly posted expressions of anger over the immediate, life-threatening FEMA folly, fury over “Homeland Security Czar” Alejandro Mayorkas reversing himself to tell people FEMA didn’t have sufficient funds to handle more disasters, claims of FEMA blocks, and even a timely, pointed letter from Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz (R), who, on October 4, wrote to Mayorkas demanding answers from the DHS Secretary, and adding:
“My office has been in contact with whistleblowers in numerous emergency-management functions at the federal, state, and local levels, and they all point to the same critical mismanagement issues. FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds, misappropriated funds, and left other federal, state, and local responders without deployment orders on the ground. As reported and further confirmed by my office, hundreds, if not thousands of service members were deployed by the Department of Defense to North Carolina and have sat idle, waiting for FEMA. We have confirmed FEMA employees deployed, on the clock, awaiting orders in hotels. FEMA pre-disaster aid was withheld, exacerbating the emergency. It is also public that NGOs have purchased airline tickets for migrants through the use of FEMA funds.”
In addition to Save Our Allies Co-Founder Tim Kennedy testifying live on television to private aid flights being blocked, people in North Carolina and Tennessee spread word themselves that private helicopter pilots and drone owners were spotting desperate victims and rescuing them, but that, in numerous instances, the federal bureaucracy was blocking them.
Related: 'Where Is the Federal Response?' Helene Relief Volunteer Running Rescue Missions Blasts FEMA
And, after “Transportation Secretary” Pete Buttigieg tried to deny this, telling Musk, “No one is shutting down the airspace and the FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights…” Buttigieg was resoundingly, appropriately, called out for his arrogance (he who has the gall to claim he can define a LEGITIMATE rescue flight) and his flip rhetorical fabrications.
After all, as one X user told him, even as she posted the video evidence of Pothole Pete SAYING that the FAA was going to restrict airspace:
“You made a whole video on shutting down drones you lying POS:”
And more followed, including local news reporting on the federal oppression.
Indeed, 19 years later, FEMA appears to have expanded on the “cluster-f---" malfeasance it exhibited during Katrina. At that time, both New Orleans Mayor Nagan and the feds were cited for squandering BILLIONS of our tax cash, for blocking private aid being brought in by companies such as Walmart, and more.
As Chris Edwards wrote for the Cato Institute in 2015, the FEMA-Katrina foul-ups cost lives and revealed the ever-present darkness, the utter falsity, of so-called “government aid.” As he looked at the Katrina aftermath he found:
- FEMA repeatedly blocked the delivery of emergency supplies ordered by the Methodist Hospital in New Orleans from its out-of-state headquarters.
- FEMA turned away doctors volunteering their services at emergency facilities. Methodist’s sister hospital, Chalmette, for example, sent doctors to the emergency facility set up at New Orleans Airport to offer their services, but they were turned away because their names were not in a government database.
- Private medical air transport companies played an important role in evacuations after Katrina. But FEMA officials provided no help in coordinating these services, and they actively blocked some of the flights.
- FEMA “refused Amtrak’s offer to evacuate victims, and wouldn’t return calls from the American Bus Association.” Indeed, both the Motorcoach Association and the American Bus Association could not get through to anyone at FEMA to offer help for evacuations.
- The Red Cross was denied access to the Superdome in New Orleans to deliver emergency supplies.
- FEMA turned away trucks from Walmart loaded with water for New Orleans, and it prevented the Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel.
- Offers of emergency supplies, vehicles, and specialized equipment from other nations were caught in federal red tape and shipments were delayed.
Sound familiar?
Of course, the problem is not isolated to a set of bureaucratic hurdles or personalities. The problem is inherent in the political usurpation of individual and local control, and the anger that Americans feel when seeing the money spent on aid to Helene victims versus the money and weapons sent to foreign nations is full of justified indignation, but it misses key constitutional and philosophical principles.
First, of course, there are the constitutional matters. Jimmy Carter’s 1979 creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had nothing to do with any enumerated power in the US Constitution. Just like there is nothing in the Constitution allowing federal politicians to send our money or send weapons to places like Ukraine when the US is not in a declared War, there is nothing allowing the feds to create a FEMA or hand out aid for so-called “natural disasters.”
Congressman David Crockett made this point in his famous 1830 “Not Yours To Give” speech on the House floor.
And that position is consistent with what the Founders viewed as the appropriate role of the state. They stuck to John Locke’s concept that government exists to stop or punish person-on-person predation, not to handle naturally occurring phenomena.
And who defines “natural disaster”?
Only individuals can judge what is a disaster to them. Politicians assuming such omniscience destroys personal valuation regarding what is or is not "disastrous". When politicians define that, no one know if others actually agree. How hot is too hot? How much snow is a disaster? Two feet of snow on a ski hill might be a blessing, while two feet of snow on Florida orange groves might not be so beneficial to people.
Only individuals can judge these things for themselves and affix prices for benefit and loss relative to their other needs in live. The market allows them to express their positions, and voluntary charity allows others to free-up capital, time, and other resources to help them. Markets also provide incentives to be as efficient and thorough as possible for both preparation, risk mitigation, and rebuilding. History shows that, in practice, private market interests lead to faster recovery after disasters.
And, of course, charity only reflects personal values if it is offered voluntarily. Government operations are conducted through force, and this force often adopts an arrogance and conceit that blocks local people with local knowledge from helping their neighbors.
Both morally and practically, both economically and constitutionally, every aspect of FEMA is offensive to human dignity, literally BLOCKING our freedom to help others while it politicizes the very definition of the word "disaster."
The situation in the Helene storm zones is showing us this, as each desperate hour passes.