FEMA director a joker; NWS understaffed

Employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were recently surprised when their boss, Acting Director David Richardson, said in a staff meeting that he did not know the United States had a hurricane season.

All of us who live in Southwest Florida are fully aware that the hurricane season runs from June 1 to the end of November, yet the President Donald Trump appointee who oversees FEMA was baffled by the information.

Some FEMA employees who were in the room thought he was joking, but others were appalled.

An official from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, later said Richardson was joking. He has no prior experience managing responses to natural disasters.

This is what happens when agency appointments are bas

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