This axiomatic law of political-economics often becomes more starkly revealed when government “emergency” groups “jump into action,” because local people cite them for their sloth, inaction, waste, political favoritism, turf-war mentality, and for their adversarial relationship with real, private charitable initiatives.
Thus, we get not just the stories from New Orleans in 2005, when private charity literally was blocked by FEMA, we see more recent stories about FEMA screwing up local efforts to help victims of Hurricane Helene, and now, we see an even darker side to the FEMA bureaucracy.