FEMA's Puerto Rico response: it gets worse

Remember the Zinke compatriot who got (and later lost) a contract for the electrical rebuilding in Puerto Rico, even though it was a 2-man company? Well, you ain't heard nothin' yet.

In November, the Associated Press revealed that the agency paid a single firm $30 million for emergency tarps and plastic sheeting — none of which was ever delivered.

And on Tuesday, the New York Times reported that FEMA handed off responsibility for providing Puerto Rico with much of its emergency food aid to “Tiffany Brown, an Atlanta entrepreneur with no experience in large-scale disaster relief and at least five canceled government contracts in her past.” The agency struck a $156 million contract with Brown, which required her to deliver 30 million meals to hungry Puerto Ricans.

  NY Magazine

And Tiffany did Zinke's buddy one better: she only has one employee. Herself.

By the time 18.5 million meals were due, Tribute had delivered only 50,000. And FEMA inspectors discovered a problem: The food had been packaged separately from the pouches used to heat them. FEMA’s solicitation required “self-heating meals.”

…FEMA insists no Puerto Ricans missed a meal as a result of the failed agreement with Tribute. FEMA relied on other suppliers that provided “ample” food and water for distribution, said William Booher, an agency spokesman.

Like maybe chef José Andrés who provided more than three million meals through his own largesse and personally went to the island to cook?

Days before Hurricane Maria made landfall, the White House learned that a Category 4 storm was likely to hit the island, and that the territory’s electrical grid was unlikely to survive such an onslaught.

The federal government had time to deploy satellite phones to the island, to avoid the communications blackout that isolated remote areas from the territory’s government. It could have delivered reserves of food, fuel, and water in advance of the storm, allowing local officials to spread those vital resources throughout the territory before Maria lay waste to much of its trucking infrastructure. Instead, the president did almost nothing in the lead-up to the storm — and went on a four-day golf vacation in its immediate aftermath.

[...]

When the president visited Puerto Rico, he told the island’s residents that they should be very proud of the government’s response — because it had spared them from suffering a “real catastrophe like Katrina.” He (and Congress) proceeded to provide the catastrophically indebted island with $4.9 billion in loans — instead of no-strings-attached aid — and then pushed through a $1.5 trillion tax-cut package, which includes provisions that directly undermine Puerto Rico’s manufacturing sector.

And was anybody surprised?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.