FEMA spent $75 million to dock a half-empty cruise ship off Puerto Rico for 4 months

[babylonsister]

https://thinkprogress.org/fema-spent-75-million-to-dock-a-half-empty-cruise-ship-off-puerto-rico-for-4-months-251b3918f36b/

FEMA spent $75 million to dock a half-empty cruise ship off Puerto Rico for 4 months
That's more than it spent on direct home rebuilding grants to citizens of the island in the same time frame.
Alan Pyke
May 30, 2018, 8:04 pm


The company behind Carnival cruises got more money from the federal government in connection with hurricanes that leveled much of Puerto Rico than the amount given to Puerto Ricans to rebuild their homes over the first four months of relief efforts.

When the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) needs to house support staffers providing relief to storm-torn islands, it seeks floating shelter for them to avoid exacerbating crowding on land. But in its rush to secure private-sector boat housing for relief workers, FEMA funneled $75 million to the Panama-based cruise line on a contract that billed the government more than twice as much per head as the company charges paying customers, contracts obtained by Miami-based radio station WLRN show.

FEMA paid Carnival $75 million to rent the vessel Fascination from mid-October to early February. At that point, FEMA had disbursed less than $70 million in direct rebuilding funds to survivors of the storms on Puerto Rico, the station reports. “Only later in March — about a month and a half after the Carnival agreement expired — did FEMA dollars disbursed to residents catch up with the contract,” WLRN wrote.

The ugly optics of the Carnival boondoggle are exacerbated by news that FEMA used less than half of the onboard housing capacity it paid the company to secure. It is not the first time the agency has spent millions of dollars on half-empty cruise ships docked alongside still-devastated communities primarily home to people of color. After Hurricane Katrina, then-President George W. Bush’s FEMA head Michael Brown signed off on a $236 million contract with Carnival for a trio of ships that were never more than half full.

snip//

The Carnival deal is a drop in the bucket next to the sum total appropriated for Hurricane Maria relief efforts, which measure in the tens of billions. But where that money is slow and inconsistent in reaching those its intended to help, Carnival got paid with all the digital efficiency of any other corporate vendor doing business with the U.S. government.


The news of the half-empty $75 million cruise ship that FEMA called a “floating hotel” comes hard on the heels of a fresh estimate of the death toll from the storm. In stark contrast to the official count of just 64 fatalities, new expert estimates count more than 5,000 dead.

The day that new estimate broke, cable news networks covered the shocking Puerto Rico death toll estimate for a combined 30 minutes, according to Media Matters. They spent more than 10 hours talking about Roseanne Barr, who tragically lost her network sitcom for making the umpteenth racist joke of her long career.

[Iliyah]

1. Well someone made a profit off of pain and suffering.

Again, this administration alongwith t-rump and the GOP don't care.

They just don't.

[benld74]

2. Someone ALWAYS makes a profit off of pain and suffering

[Javaman]

3. remember the billions that vanished in Iraq?

same type of shit.

[djacq]

4. Orange Clown did a heck of job

Worst disaster relief since Katrina.

[Scurrilous]

5. K&R