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FEMA officials reportedly staying at 5-star Maui hotels costing taxpayers BANK

August 22, 2023 | | Print Article

Concerns over the federal government’s botched handling of the Maui wildfire stretched into resource mismanagement as hundreds of personnel were reportedly put up in luxury hotels at a grand per night.

Efforts to locate survivors and identify those who tragically lost their lives in Hawaii have continued amidst intense debate over how public officials may have failed their community. Now, with around 1,000 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees overseeing the disaster zone, the Daily Mail reported their post accommodations are costing taxpayers at least $1,000 per night.

“Bungling U.S. government bureaucrats dispatched to the Maui disaster zone are shacked up in $1,000-a-night luxury hotels on the Hawaiian island,” the report detailed Tuesday.

Three of the locations FEMA teams were reportedly staying at were five-star hotels that included the Grand Wailea, Four Seasons and the Fairmont Kea Lani. Additional officials were staying at the Marriott Wailea Beach.

“The beachside resorts are popular among the rich and famous and located about a 45-minute drive away from the fire-ravaged town of Lahaina,” indicated the Mail as a local government employee identified only as Kaleo said, “Shouldn’t they stay closer to the site, instead of staying across on the other side of the island?”

“The Fairmont Kea Lani, Hawaiian for ‘heavenly white’, boasts on its website about being the ‘only all-suite’ hotel in Hawaii that once welcomed ex-Bond star Pierce Brosnan and offers ‘gourmet dining’ to uber-wealthy guests,” the outlet detailed of one of the resorts.

With spacious suites equipped with private balconies and other luxury amenities, the accommodations only further soured to the response from the federal government that included lackluster engagement from vacationing President Joe Biden and the issuance of one-time payments of $700 per household to survivors to acquire essentials such as food and clothing.

Earlier this week former FEMA Director Michael Brown, who had been in charge of the agency in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina struck, voiced his concern over the current response to NewsNation’s Leland Vittert who had asked “Do you see the awesome power of the federal government being mobilized over the weekend to help the folks in Maui?”

“No. And again, you know, I’m a little reticent, reticent to criticize because I know what it’s to be, what it’s like to be on the end of that criticism,” responded Brown. “But what I’ve learned so far as we have urban search and rescue, urban search and rescue team task force from, I think, Indiana, California, Washington. There may be a few others. But, you know, on 9/11 and not to compare this to 9/11 necessarily, but we had every single urban search and rescue team at either Ground Zero or at the Pentagon.”

After lamenting the limited number of cadaver dogs on site, Brown went on to say, “I also heard the state senator talk about how they’re not getting the resources…And then when I heard the president talk about he has been talking to the governor about when he should travel? No, you should be talking to the governor about what do you need? Or better yet. The right question is, ‘Governor, what are you not getting?’ And then turn to your FEMA director and say the governor tells me he’s not getting this. Well, the FEMA director should already know this, but that’s the conversations that should be taking place. I just find it infuriating.”

Further evidence of the mismanagement came late last week when the head of the Maui Emergency Management Agency, Administrator Herman Andaya, resigned one day after defending his decision not to engage the island’s warning alarm as the fire raged across Maui.

As for displaced survivors, the White House has thus far signed off on $7 million to provide temporary accommodations in available hotels or condos.

Kevin Haggerty
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