Kamala Harris skipped all of her hurricane preparedness briefings. 

 

New York Post: Vice President Kamala Harris is at the center of a new storm for forgoing annual hurricane season preparedness briefings that were a staple of her predecessor Mike Pence’s calendar — with critics arguing the omission reflects how she may govern as president.

 

Foes of the Democratic presidential nominee highlighted the missing briefings as the death toll from Hurricane Helene passed 143 in the Southeast — as Harris scrambled back to Washington from Las Vegas Monday to attend a FEMA briefing and booked a trip Wednesday to storm-hit Augusta, Ga.

 

“Harris hasn’t demonstrated the ability — or desire — to do the apolitical parts of the job that have a huge impact on our lives,” a former Pence aide told The Post as criticism of the flat-footed federal response to Helene became a campaign issue. “Why should Americans trust her to start in the Oval Office?”

 

Then-President Donald Trump and Pence held pre-hurricane season preparedness meetings with federal emergency officials in each of their four years in office. President Biden had similar meetings in 2021, 2022 and 2023 — though Harris doesn’t seem to have joined or held her own parallel events.

 

Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told The Post that annual drop-ins from the president and vice president are important and that the omission calls to mind Harris’ role as Biden’s point person on illegal immigration.

 

“It just fits a larger pattern,” Wolf said.

 

“It doesn’t seem like she wants to roll up her sleeves and actually get into the governing of the country, which is hard to do. It’s not glamorous. It’s a lot of briefings.”

 

“My guess,” he added, “is she would act the very same way [as president], which is hands off — ‘I’m not going to run the country. I’m going to put a team together, and they’ll run it, and I’ll kind of talk about it,’ which is obviously a very different model than what President Trump did.”

 

Wolf, who held a number of high-profile roles that dealt with emergency management in the Trump-Pence administration, said that the briefings served to put FEMA workers on their toes — and also to force their managers to analyze anticipated issues — while also facilitating support from on high.

 

“It’s like any other job where your boss is asking you specific questions — you get more motivated to do a better job,” Wolf said.

 

“It’s not that they do a lesser job. It’s just they know that the importance isn’t being placed on on their work.”

 

FEMA currently is struggling to get a hold of the situation in the areas hardest-hit by flooding, including in western North Carolina.

 

“The people in western North Carolina feel let down, deservedly so,” Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), whose district includes some of the worst-impacted areas, told NewsNation Monday.

 

“The response has been disappointing,” Edwards said. “We’ve begun to see some resources brought in today, but the storm was over about 80 hours ago. The storm was over about 10 a.m. Friday. We knew that the storm was coming and only today are we beginning to see the first FEMA employees and trailers and helicopters come in.”

 

It’s unclear why exactly Harris did not join the Biden hurricane preparedness briefings held during the first three years of their administration or why she didn’t hold her own — as Pence did one year.

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