FEMA ‘disturbed’ by reports official told workers to ‘avoid homes’ with Trump campaign signs during Hurricane Milton relief effort

The statement was in response to The Daily Wire's explosive report that revealed through text messages that supervisor Marn’i Washington with the disaster relief agency told workers to "avoid homes advertising Trump" as they worked to identify those in the Lake Placid, Florida area who may be eligible for federal aid. This led to at least 20 homes being bypassed in October and November.

"FEMA helps all survivors regardless of their political preference or affiliation and we are deeply disturbed by this employee’s actions," the agency said in a statement to Daily Wire. "While we believe this is an isolated incident, we have taken measures to remove the employee from their role and are investigating the matter to prevent this from happening ever again.

"The employee who issued this guidance had no authority and was given no direction to tell teams to avoid these homes and we are reaching out to the people who may have not been reached as a result of this incident.

"This is a matter that we take extremely seriously and we are doing everything we can to make sure all survivors receive support from FEMA. To date, we have helped over 365,000 households impacted by both Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the state of Florida and have provided over $898 million in direct assistance to survivors.

"We are horrified that this took place and therefore have taken extreme actions to correct this situation and have ensured that the matter was addressed at all levels. Helping people is what we do best and our workforce across the agency will continue to serve survivors for as long as it takes."

Washington had told workers, per messages The Daily Wire viewed, that it would be "best practice" to "avoid homes advertising Trump." A worker with the agency said that the directive was given verbally on Oct. 22 and posted it to the group chat on Oct. 27. Washington started to walk back the order by Oct. 30.

Messages written in online government channels read "Trump sign no entry per leadership" on skipped houses. Other homes were noted as "Trump sign," and "per leadership no stop Trump flag."

These directives were given to workers who were part of a team from the Department of Homeland Security who joined with FEMA after a second major hurricane, Milton, struck Florida in a short period of time.

"I know they’re short-staffed," one employee said, "I thought we could go help and make a difference. When we got there we were told to discriminate against people. It’s almost unbelievable to think that somebody in the federal government would think that’s okay."

"I volunteered to help disaster victims, not discriminate against them. It didn’t matter if people were black, white, Hispanic, for Trump, for Harris. Everyone deserves the same amount of help," the employee said.

Highlands County, where were workers were told to not go to Trump-supporting households, backed Trump by 70 percent in Tuesday’s election.