FEMA’s Brock Long, Exhausted From Too Much Winning, Quits

Well, you can say goodbye to FEMA chief Brock Long who will henceforth be known as former FEMA chief Brock Long.

Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs broke the story initially and Long made it official just minutes later.

It has been a great honor to serve our country as @fema Administrator for the past two years. While this has been the opportunity of the lifetime, it is time for me to go home to my family.
You can read my full announcement here: https://t.co/2HXa7tQtV8

— Deanne Criswell (@FEMA_Deanne) February 13, 2019

We’ll save you the click. Here is his full announcement:

It has been a great honor to serve our country as FEMA Administrator for the past two years. During my tenure, the Agency worked more than 220 declared disasters. President Trump, Vice President Pence and Secretary Nielsen have been extremely supportive of me, the FEMA workforce and our mission. The President and his entire Administration provided unprecedented support to the Agency as we led the nation through the historic 2017 hurricane and wildfire season. With this Administration’s leadership, we also improved and transformed the field of emergency management through the enactment of our Agency’s Strategic Plan and partnership with Congress on the passage of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act (DRRA).

While this has been the opportunity of the lifetime, it is time for me to go home to my family — my beautiful wife and two incredible boys. As a career emergency management professional, I could not be prouder to have worked alongside the devoted, hardworking men and women of FEMA for the past two years. Upon my departure, Mr. Peter Gaynor, will serve as Acting FEMA Administrator. I leave knowing the Agency is in good hands.

Yes, it’s time for Brock “to go home”. Fortunately, he still has a “home”, and it presumably has electricity, very much unlike a lot of the people he didn’t help in Puerto Rico.

Long’s resignation caps off a not-at-all illustrious tenure as the nation’s top disaster official. In some cases, Long ended up being the disaster.

His history of tone deaf soundbites in the wake of tragedies includes the time he told Fox News that hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico where “the most logistically challenging event the United States has ever seen.” Needless to say, some folks were quick to point out that there are other historical events that might have a legitimate claim to the top spot on the “logistically challenging” list, including Normandy and the moon landing.

And who can forget the time Brock went on national television and suggested that some of the post-hurricane casualties in Puerto Rico might be due to husbands beating their wives to death.

That was part of a bungled effort to defend Trump in the face of withering criticism after the president suggested researchers at George Washington University fabricated the results of a study designed to assess the death toll from Hurricane Maria.

Read more

FEMA Chief Brock Long Suggests Puerto Ricans Beat Their Wives To Death After Hurricane Maria

But Long wasn’t just inept. Just like all Trump officials, he was corrupt too.

Last fall, he found himself staring down a criminal investigation tied to his use of government vehicles. Apparently, Long broke “as many as six laws” in the course of shuttling his family to and from a home in North Carolina on taxpayers’ dime.

The ethics investigation was yet another black mark on the scandal-ridden administration and it came at an extremely awkward time. In September, the White House was fighting to dispel the George Washington study mentioned above which cast considerable doubt on how effective the response to Hurricane Florence (which was barreling down on the Carolinas at the time) would ultimately be.

Long famously clashed with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen around the same time and was reportedly on the verge of quitting months ago.

In any case, Long now joins the long (and growing) list of top administration officials who have resigned in disgrace or else because they were simply “tired of all the winning”.

Either or.