By As over 1,000 people are still missing in Maui after the most deadly wildfire in over a century, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has got its focus on all the important things. Employees of the agency stationed in Hawaii are likely debating which food is good at the luxury hotel they’re staying at and asking each other if they’ve completed their diversity training yet.
The Daily Mail writes that “officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have been slammed by locals over their slow response to the devastating wildfires that have claimed at least 114 lives and left thousands of people homeless after their houses were scorched to the ground.
But that has not stopped the under-fire agency from splashing taxpayer cash to put up more than 1,000 of its personnel at four bank-breaking resorts in Wailea after the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. for more than a century that caused an estimated $5 billion in damage.
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.
FEMA teams have checked in at three five-star hotels, the Fairmont Kea Lani, Four Seasons, and the Grand Wailea Astoria where past guests include members of Hollywood’s elite.
Their rooms carry price tags that are well out of reach of most hard-working Americans. Federal government rates for this week at all three resorts start at an eye-watering $1,000, company sources told DailyMail.com.
One of the hotels booked by FEMA, The Fairmont Kea Lani, writes on its website that its name means “‘heavenly white.” The hotel continues: “Similar to the white plumeria, a striking flower commonly found along the Island’s shoreline and one of the resort’s inspirations, the Fairmont Kea Lani distinguishes itself quite notably even among its esteemed and architecturally pleasing peers. Many are surprised to learn that this remarkable resort reflects homage to traditional Hawaiian architectural influences.”
In between munching on lobster tails, one can imagine the agents working on their laptops completing the most important task to be done at the moment, diversity training, and telling each other to look at the hotel’s whiteness and remember that “white supremacy is all around us.”
That’s the language FEMA is pushing on its recovery teams, a recent Washington Free Beacon investigation revealed.
The outlet reported, “The federal government agency tasked with leading the response to natural disasters has its hands full as more than 1,000 Americans remain missing following wildfires that devastated the Hawaiian island of Maui. FEMA nonetheless is mandating a three-hour diversity training for employees that argues, among other things, that white supremacy is ‘ingrained in nearly every system and institution in the U.S.’
While it’s unclear how many of FEMA’s 20,000-plus employees were required to complete the training, internal emails reviewed by the Free Beacon indicate that the agency’s “resilience” division was advised of a requirement to complete one of three three-hour diversity training modules between Aug. 1 and Sept. 28. ‘FEMA Resilience’ works to “help communities across the United States equitably adapt, survive, recover and thrive in the face of natural disasters” and boasts roughly 2,600 employees, according to someone familiar. The division is led by Biden administration appointee Victoria Salinas, the agency’s website says.
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion trainings contend that the United States is ‘rooted in extreme, extraordinary violence’ and demand participants acknowledge ‘that systemic racism and oppression exist,’ according to screenshots of the training obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
FEMA leaders informed staff of the training in a July email, indicating that the effort is ‘part of our ongoing commitment to instill Equity as a Foundation of Emergency Management.’ Staffers are required to take at least one course to meet their “DEI training requirement,’ according to the email.”
The news comes after Biden’s FEMA director, Deanne Criswell, struggled to explain why so many people were still unaccounted for days after the fires had been put out.
The White House’s response to the disaster in Hawaii has been nothing short of a debacle so far. After spending two weeks on vacation and refusing to comment on the ongoing fires, President Biden finally visited Maui earlier in the week.
While there he joked about the special boots cadaver dogs wore because the ground was still so hot from the ravaging fires.
Biden jokes about how hot the ground is while touring wildfire damage in Maui pic.twitter.com/lY18UQ36fP
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 21, 2023
The president also compared people losing their children and everything they owned to a kitchen fire he had in his Delaware mansion. In his remarks, Biden said, “We only lost about 25% of it. We were able to rebuild. But, you know, the hard part is the memorabilia you lost. The special things that you had put away that you lost.”
In Maui, it wasn’t the knickknacks lost that really hurt, but the hundreds of children who died in the fires.
His tour was met with anger by residents in Hawaii, many of whom had some choice words for the president.
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