[Washington Examiner] The Federal Emergency Management Agency is failing to pay out disaster aid in hurricane-stricken Puerto Rico and struggling to work with the commonwealth's government, according to federal contractors on the ground and the agency’s own internal data.FEMA is months behind deadline for disbursing billions in disaster aid owed to the commonwealth government, its towns, and its residents nearly two years after Hurricane Maria struck.
Only a fraction of the money approved by Congress through FEMA has been delivered, just $380 million of permanent recovery work, a failure that belies President Trump's complaints that the territory and its 3.2 million U.S. citizens have received too much money.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates Puerto Rico experienced $90 billion worth of damage from the storm.
FEMA representative Abbey Dennis argued that dollar amounts alone were not sufficient for measuring recovery progress. "Every disaster is different," Dennis said in an email to the Washington Examiner. "Numbers alone cannot and do not provide a complete picture of what is needed to help communities recover."