FEMA apparently had a highly detailed plan on how to deal with a major hurricane hitting Puerto Rico.
Was that plan adequate? Was that plan actually followed? We don’t know … because it’s a secret.
Early last week, a FEMA spokesman said he would provide a copy of the plan that afternoon. It never came. After a week of follow-ups, FEMA sent a statement reversing its position. “Due to the potentially sensitive information contained within the Hurricane Annex of the Region II All Hazards Plan, there are legal questions surrounding what, if any, portions of the annex can be released,” the statement said. “As such, the documents that you seek must be reviewed and analyzed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by FEMA.” The statement did not explain what legal questions apply.
Apparently a similar FEMA plan for Hawaii is publicly available on a Defense Dept. website. FEMA has disavowed any influence over what the Defense Dept. might be doing with FEMA’s plans for Hawaii.
I look forward to seeing how this plays out.
ProPublica
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What the [redacted] is going on?
I can understand a plan for dealing with enemy attack being secret. But hurricanes? I’m not buying it. More like, “we read it and discovered it was really stupid so we didn’t want to release it.“
+Kee Hinckley Or, more likely, "We read it, realized it would be, like, really expensive and inconvenient to do it, so we didn't follow it, but we don't want to be criticized for not following it."
It's possible that there are some infrastructure discussions and details in the plan that are being held back for Homeland Security reasons. That sounds, however, like a cover for either your hypothetical reason or mine.