FEMA’s response to natural disasters is meant to provide relief and recovery. Yet, its handling of Puerto Rico’s post-Hurricane Maria recovery only worsened the crisis. Systemic mismanagement, poor hiring practices, and a culture of avoiding accountability plagued the process. Those who attempted to expose these failures faced retaliation.

Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017, causing catastrophic damage and leaving millions without power, water, or essential services. With the island already weakened by economic decline, damages exceeded $90 billion. Despite Congress allocating tens of billions in aid, FEMA’s mismanagement led to widespread delays. Reports surfaced of misallocated funds, unqualified personnel overseeing major infrastructure projects, and political interference stalling recovery efforts. Years later, many communities remained in disrepair due to FEMA’s failure to meet its commitments.

From the start, FEMA’s response was hindered by a lack of experienced personnel. Prior disasters already pulled away its most capable staff, leaving less qualified employees in charge of Puerto Rico’s recovery. The island’s remote location and FEMA’s restrictive “50-week rule” further complicated logistics. Additionally, FEMA was tasked with integrating disaster mitigation and resiliency into the entire reconstruction, adding another layer of complexity. A flawed IT system rollout and an ineffective sector-based damage assessment approach further slowed progress. With nearly 50,000 sites requiring inspections and Puerto Rico’s infrastructure in ruins, the response quickly became unmanageable.

A critical but overlooked factor in FEMA’s failures was its DEI-driven hiring policies. The agency mandated that at least 80% of its 2,000–3,000 employees in Puerto Rico be local hires, despite a limited pool of qualified candidates. While local employment is commendable, many lacked experience in disaster response, engineering, or project management, yet were placed in key roles. Some were rapidly promoted to management positions, bypassing years of necessary experience. This resulted in an unprepared workforce, exacerbating inefficiencies and delays. Puerto Rico’s high unemployment rate, coupled with FEMA’s well-paying, stable jobs, disincentivized rapid recovery. By FEMA’s original October 2019 deadline to complete all work, only 5–8% of the work was completed.

In May 2018, FEMA awarded a $10 million contract to ATCS, a Virginia-based civil engineering firm, to improve efficiency and train FEMA personnel. Partnering with Guidehouse, ATCS deployed a team of seven consultants — former corporate executives and retired military officers — to implement the Lean Six Sigma, a methodology used by major companies such as GE and Amazon to improve processes. With over 150 years of combined experience across 60 organizations in the public and private sectors, both in the United States and internationally, the team had a unique, comprehensive view of FEMA’s recovery operation.

The team unanimously viewed FEMA as the most woefully incompetent and unaccountable organization it had ever encountered — a striking assessment given the consultants’ experience in turning around failing operations, including those in war zones.

By April and May 2019, the team filed multiple whistleblower complaints with the DHS Office of Inspector General and members of Congress, citing waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement related to their contract and the overall recovery effort. As a component of DHS, FEMA fell under the DHS’s oversight. Notably, no member of the team had ever filed a whistleblower or discrimination complaint.

Some of the key allegations included:

• FEMA inflated recovery obligations by $1.5 billion to mislead Congress about progress.
• Over $40 million was spent leasing water pumps that could have been purchased for under $5 million. The whistleblower who exposed this died under unusual circumstances.
• A faulty and plagiarized damage assessment model for water treatment facilities. The errors would inflate FEMA payouts by millions of dollars. 
• Failure to comply with the Prompt Payment Act pushed multiple businesses, including a nonprofit organization and a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, to near insolvency.
• The vetting process for evaluating the eligibility and internal controls for nonprofit organizations awarded contracts was ignored.
• A digital site inspection tool capable of saving $50–$70 million and benefiting future disaster response efforts was lost.
• Hundreds of records related to housing damages were falsified by an employee previously reprimanded for misconduct, yet he remained employed.
• A FEMA manager colluded with a prime contractor to steal answer keys and dilute certification requirements in the LSS program she managed — and was failing.
• Multiple violations of Federal Acquisition Regulations, the Antideficiency Act, potential contract fraud, and intellectual property theft related to the LSS program were identified.
• Public Wi-Fi at the Joint Recovery Office had to be restricted after up to 100 employees were caught streaming Netflix during work hours.

Beyond broader recovery failures, FEMA’s most egregious mismanagement was the targeted discrimination against our team by LGBTQ leaders of the Continuous Improvement Program and the extended FEMA “LGBTQ mafia.” Over a year, our team — composed of cisgender, straight, white, older males— was systematically undermined and sabotaged. The CIP Leader role is critical, serving as the organization’s process architect. Typically, this position requires an undergraduate technical degree, an MBA, and 10–15 years of experience; in the military, this position would be held by a colonel or brigadier general.

During this period, we reported to a transgender Native American, a transgender African American, and a white lesbian, all of whom exhibited clear bias. None had the requisite academic or professional background, nor did they have FEMA experience. The final Hispanic CIP leader was notably unqualified— a recent local hire with no technical background and only four years of experience teaching English in Japan to grade school students. She unabashedly prioritized her law school studies over her FEMA duties. CIP was dominated by younger women under the age of 35, all lacking technical expertise, while experienced older Hispanic women with excellent credentials were fired, forced out, or passed over. One filed an age discrimination suit. This bias against age and experience destabilized the program.

In the hostile work environment, we faced excessive scrutiny, withheld resources, publicly criticized our salaries, sabotaged presentations, obstructed software testing, and delayed projects. The LSS team was secretly timed in restrooms, spied on for minor infractions, and had a highly positive performance review suppressed. We were reprimanded for using common phrases such as “too many chiefs and not enough Indians” and for naming a training simulation “FEMAil” (FEMA + mail), which was deemed offensive to nonbinary individuals. A CIP member even photographed an unlit cigar after hours at a colleague’s restricted workspace, despite cameras being prohibited and unlit cigars permitted. It was not uncommon to learn that things said in Spanish, such as “don’t listen to old white guys,” were said behind our backs. The toxicity of the work environment became so well known that FEMA’s Alternative Dispute Resolution group, which typically does not assist contractors, privately offered mediation.

The transgender Native American’s social media posts openly mocked cisgender, straight, white, older males, Republicans, and military veterans. To appease the transgender Native American, ATCS pressured us to recruit an LGBTQ consultant. When unsuccessful, they instead hired a young and inexperienced Hispanic female connected to the transgender Native American. This employee would later have multiple OIG complaints filed against her for falsifying reports to protect a company ATCS partnered with, attempting to steal the test answers, and diluting certification requirements on behalf of the CIP who was failing the LSS training.

When FEMA learned my team had blown the whistle, they immediately retaliated. The contract was prematurely canceled, resulting in over $100 million in lost benefits. Critical software developed by the team — the Digital Site Inspection Tool — was lost in the scramble to remove us, despite its potential to dramatically speed up claims processing for disaster survivors while saving over $70 million in productivity. Incriminating files showing out-of-scope contract work were deleted. Recovery efforts were significantly delayed, with no self-sustaining program established for future disaster responses.

Despite filing multiple complaints with oversight bodies, there was little accountability. Local OIG agents displayed apathy, often dismissing complaints unless fraud was “easily and readily provable.” A nonprofit organization that works with whistleblowers advised us early on that the DHS inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, was notorious for ignoring misconduct. He was later accused of abusing his authority, misleading officials during his nomination, misusing taxpayer funds for retaliation, interfering with investigations, and obstructing congressional oversight, leading to calls for his removal.

The failure of FEMA’s oversight mechanisms extended beyond the OIG’s inaction. The Freedom of Information Act Office, the Equal Employment Opportunity Office, the contracting office, the DHS Office of General Counsel, and FEMA’s leadership in both Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., all failed to act upon documented malfeasance. Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner to Congress, Jennifer Gonzalez-Colon, was notably missing in action. We dubbed them all, “The Great Circle of Unaccountability.” Rather than addressing the problems, FEMA stonewalled complaints and retaliated against those who raised concerns. Instead of fostering communication, multiple investigations into the same problems were conducted in isolation, with no shared results or coordination.

FEMA’s EEO Office mishandled our discrimination complaints over three years. One intake staff member initially dismissed us, stating, “This office isn’t for people like you.” Our complaints were “lost” five times. After six months of interviews, our counselor determined that discrimination likely occurred and was preparing to launch an investigation. The following week, she was gone, and the EEO claimed to have no record of our class complaint. Almost a year later, they “found” it but said we missed filing deadlines — deadlines we missed because we followed their erroneous guidance. The EEO branch chief did say we should “feel good” because the people who mishandled our case were no longer at FEMA. 

One bright spot at FEMA was the Office of Professional Responsibility. It investigates malfeasance by FEMA personnel and is akin to Internal Affairs in a police force. It generated three reports totaling 930 pages documenting the extensive malfeasance and discrimination on our contract. Due to bureaucratic silos, no other investigative body looking at the same facts would use OPR’s results. Unfortunately, the Freedom of Information Act Office has continued to suppress the report for nearly four years and literally redacted every page even after pressure from several members of Congress. 

The Whistleblower Protection Unit ultimately ruled in our favor and concluded that ATCS did retaliate — an exceedingly rare outcome — yet took over three years to do so. It ignored the grotesque retaliation by FEMA despite other FEMA investigators concluding FEMA did retaliate. Due to the elapsed time, many key matters were buried, and strict deadlines left us little recourse to appeal.

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Five lawsuits were filed, addressing claims of discrimination, whistleblower retaliation, intellectual property theft, fraud, and breach of contract. Interestingly, for each case opposing counsels have not denied the alleged malfeasance occurred. They also tried to dismiss the cases with arcane legal technicalities. Government lawyers continue to fight the release of the OPR reports in discovery. As the saying goes, “If the facts are against you, argue the law.  If the law is against you, argue the facts.”

While DEI policies can have value, they must prioritize competence. In Puerto Rico, FEMA’s approach prioritized optics over qualifications, ultimately undermining recovery efforts and harming disaster survivors. Had FEMA and DHS addressed these problems early, rather than piecemeal, and didn’t repeatedly cover things up and deflect blame, the situation could have been resolved five years ago. My team believes that its experience is part of a larger systemic problem at FEMA. The current administration is right to audit FEMA and evaluate whether disaster recovery responsibilities should be transferred to state emergency management agencies.

Barry Angeline is a retired corporate executive with over 30 years of experience in process improvement at organizations such as GE, Sun Microsystems, Time Warner, the USMC, and U.S. Army. He holds multiple awards for quality management, was awarded several patents, and has publications in performance management. He was a technical leader for the FEMA Lean Six Sigma deployment in Puerto Rico.  

Col. Dan McCabe (USA Ret.) was awarded two Bronze Star Medals. Army armor officer and two-tour veteran of OIF-1. After retirement, he worked with U.S. and Iraqi flag officers and the U.S. State Department in transferring U.S. security training operations over from the Army to the State Department and then to the Iraqi government. McCabe was a senior consultant for the FEMA Lean Six Sigma deployment in Puerto Rico.