Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Brock Long announced his resignation Wednesday after two years on the job.
“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,” Long said in a statement. “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.”
He added that the deputy administrator of the agency, Peter Gaynor, will take his place. “I leave knowing the agency is in good hands,” Long also said in his statement.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement responding to Long’s announcement that he has proven worthy of admiration for his work during some of the nation’s most devastating natural disasters and his leadership “during very difficult, historic and complex times.”
However, his two-year tenure at FEMA has been far from spotless. Last year, the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security investigated his use of government resources for personal travel and he was forced to repay the government for the expenses he had incurred for his travels. The inspector general found that Long’s unauthorized travels amounted to more than $150,000.
Back at the time, Long said any wrongdoing was unintentional, arguing that he was not an unethical person.
As FEMA administrator, Long also came under fire for his management of the government’s response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico for months on end and resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 people.
FEMA’s leadership later acknowledged in a report that it didn’t anticipate well enough the severity of the consequences from hurricanes Irma and Maria in the long term.
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