As Hurricane Milton has just been downgraded into a post-tropical cyclone and left at least 10 people killed and three million people in t...
As Hurricane Milton has just been downgraded into a post-tropical cyclone and left at least 10 people killed and three million people in the dark as of press time, desperate victims of Hurricane Helene are still waiting for the Biden-Harris administration's financially depleted Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to realize that they need its help.
Americans from Florida to North Carolina continue to deal with the devastating consequences of Helene, which is considered the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. since Katrina. Unlike Hurricane Katrina, which received non-stop coverage on cable news for weeks, with primetime anchors like Anderson Cooper visiting on location covering stories of human tragedy and government incompetence, Helene's aftermath has received far less coverage.
According to analysts, news about the horrifying damage of Helene has just proliferated on social media. What makes it worse is that there was a lack of government assistance and private efforts from private individuals were more evident.
An account on X even exposed FEMA's instruction to Mission Hospital, a private medical institution, to recover the bodies who were killed because of Hurricane Helene, and even expand the number of fatalities. FEMA people said that this is because they could no longer assist in this operation as their officials are too busy helping illegal migrants at the border.
"Picked up a flight of pediatric medical supplies that were brought in and are going to North Asheville," the woman said. "We were sitting in the private portion of the airport and we got to overhear an awful lot. There was a lot of chatter among the army pilots, the navy pilots, hospital representatives."
According to the woman, a FEMA executive told people from the hospital that "it is going to be the morgue center for body recovery of all the fatalities of Helene."
"So, they told Mission Hospital they are not sending refrigerated trucks," she said. "Whatever fatality numbers you are hearing, add a couple of zeros."
Meanwhile, critics are calling for the scrutiny of the allocation of emergency resources.
"The victims of this tragedy, like all Americans, have their wealth extracted by Washington to fill the coffers of large federal agencies like FEMA. This same agency, whose nominal priority is to assist Americans in the case of emergency, are already pleading poverty," Mises Institute or the Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, a nonprofit think tank headquartered in Alabama, said in an article.
"Of course, these same agencies oversaw the redirection of over a billion dollars in recent years to subsidize migration into the country. The priorities are clear, emergency funds take a back seat to a regime that cares more about new arrivals than the families who lived in this country for generations," it lamented.
White House claims falsehood on their Helene efforts
Senior Advisor to the President and Communications Director Ben LaBolt and Director of Digital Strategy Christian Tom released a White House statement "debunking the falsehoods" of news about their Helene recovery efforts.
According to them, several scam artists, bad-faith actors and others who want to sow chaos because they think it helps their political interests, are promoting disinformation about the recovery effort, including ways to access critical and life-saving resources.
They claimed under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s direction, the administration has mobilized "a robust, intensive and whole-of-government effort to respond to the impacts of Hurricane Helene."
"This includes extensive pre-landfall preparations, as well as an immediate surge of additional resources and personnel to impacted communities. More than 6,400 Federal personnel are on the ground, and more than $110 million in Federal assistance has been given to survivors, with more to come. We are sparing no resource as we work to ensure communities across the Southeast have prompt access to Federal resources that will enable them to both purchase essential items and begin their road to recovery and rebuilding," the Oct. 5 press statement explained.
The release also cited various mainstream and independent news sites that it claimed to be providing false information on the recovery efforts and diverting of disaster funds, including CNN, HuffPost, The Hill, Washington Post, NBC News and WVLT.
"The Biden-Harris administration continues to work via the official White House digital channels to inform the public of the response and recovery efforts to dispel the misinformation being shared, with higher volume on X than other platforms. Updates will continue to be shared about the volume and scope of federal aid being delivered," it further claimed.
Meanwhile, Biden said previously that he may ask Congress for a supplemental bill to fund Hurricane Helene relief efforts, suggesting lawmakers may have to return from their lengthy election recess to pass it.
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