FEMA sucks.
FEMA hired drivers in to bring ice. If they didn't need the ice in Hattiesburg, the company had them run up to Iowa (anyway, a long ways away) for their next stop. The company sent them the bill for shipping.
They need the person from the Forest Service's Region 4 in charge of contracts for FEMA. No sugar daddy stuff like that ever happen again. That person runs a very tight ship, and keeps a eagle eye on contractor games. Emergency during wildland fires or no, you wouldn't ever get away with doing stunts like that in Region 4!
Lots of carefully prepositioned contracts, a well-organized cache of emergency equipment, buyers who have tightly controlled and limited authority on the ground and rational ideas about what things ought to cost.
FEMA comes around with dollars coming out of the kazoo, and little accountability, and starts throwing money around.
Could do a lot more good if somebody doing emergency response actually would use the people who know how to do the jobs without letting the government and the people they are trying to help get ripped off.
Shame!
Sounds wonderful, this fantasyland... but it isn't possible.