Post

SCOOP: FEMA is now requiring disaster survivors to sign up to receive aid using an email address - a move that is already putting some of the country’s most vulnerable people at risk of missing out on federal help, employees told me:

in a document announcing the change seen by WIRED, the agency says that more than 80% of survivors already use email to sign up for assistance. but one FEMA worker told me they saw a colleague turn away a survivor bc they didn’t have email

the colleague, the worker told WIRED, wrote down instructions for the person to sign up for a Hotmail email address. “You could tell this person was not going to be able to figure it out,” they told me

govt data shows that one in five US households don’t have access to the internet; these households are more likely to be racial and ethnic minorities and make less than $25,000/year