Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staff members broke the law when they bypassed 11 hurricane-damaged homes in Florida that displayed political signs supporting then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to a federal watchdog report released Tuesday. The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (OIG) faulted a FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance (DSA) crew for Hurricane Milton, stating they violated FEMA policy and the Hatch Act by skipping these residences.
The watchdog determined that these issues stemmed from weaknesses in FEMA's training, documentation, and oversight. The report indicated that FEMA DSA crews did not receive ethics and Hatch Act training before deploying to disaster areas. Furthermore, DSA policies and procedures did not require crews to explain why they skipped homes, and crew leaders were not mandated to conduct quality control reviews of survivor interactions.
Marni Washington, a former FEMA supervisor, did not deny instructing her crew members to refrain from offering disaster relief services to victims of Hurricane Milton in Florida who supported the Republican president's 2024 campaign. However, she asserted that the practice was not isolated to her group, telling a YouTube podcaster in November 2024 that FEMA preaches avoidance and de-escalation and that this situation was "not isolated."
The FEMA crews canvassed Lake Placid, Florida, between late October and early November 2024, denying residents the opportunity to register for federal disaster relief assistance following the Category 3 hurricane's landfall. The report noted that the former FEMA boss had previously faced a Hatch Act complaint filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which could have led to civil penalties or a ban from future federal employment.
The OIG report also criticized former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for failing to fund a contractor that could have provided more data on whether crews skipped homes for unallowable reasons during other hurricanes that season. The inspector general's office stated that they could not determine if crews skipped locations for unallowable reasons during other disasters because the support contract for FEMA's Field Assessment and Collection Tools expired in September 2025 when Noem did not act on FEMA's request to fund it before its expiration. The OIG requested access to this data in March 2025, but FEMA delays prevented them from obtaining it before the contractor abruptly shut down the system.
In total, FEMA crews canvassed 744,288 homes after Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Of these, workers did not make contact with 555,374 residences.