“They didn’t even look at my ID. I just wore a blazer, and it worked,” says James O’Keefe, expecting tight security, upon arriving at FEMA’s temporary headquarters in Hickory, North Carolina. O'Keefe Media Group traveled to North Carolina to investigate the reality of Hurricane Helene relief efforts, gaining access to FEMA’s offices to uncover the truth.

O’Keefe entered the office of Tom McCool, the Federal Coordinating Officer overseeing FEMA’s disaster response, where McCool welcomed O’Keefe and the OMG team inside, but instead of discussing FEMA’s recovery efforts, he asked where O’Keefe was “from,” revealed he had recently been in “Fort Dix,” and inquired, “which exit” O’Keefe lived off of. Security, becoming suspicious, then ushered O’Keefe and OMG journalists into a separate room, where they were met by Patricia Lea Crager, FEMA’s External Affairs Director.

Our OMG Journalist proceeded to ask Crager, “Why aren’t these people out in the field helping? Instead of being in offices, I thought they were out in the community helping.” Crager responded, “We're not playing games. I'm not doing an interview,” and declined to answer any questions about FEMA’s disaster relief efforts.

OMG were then met with the FEMA Public Affairs specialist Nicole Wilson, the 2001: A Space Odyssey, “HAL”robot-like entity, who O'Keefe previously spoke to on the phone. Wilson stated, “As of today, we've got about $247 million in the hands of North Carolina survivors,” and added, “That's about 135,000 households that have received that assistance.” When O’Keefe pressed for more information, he was handed more business cards and told to email individuals for answers, despite being in-person with FEMA executives.

To understand how O’Keefe and OMG were able to easily access FEMA’s offices, O’Keefe called Joe Sordi, the CEO of Strategic Security Corporation. Sordi, hesitant to speak, said, “You'd have to send your media inquiry over and then we can get back to you,” and asked, “Are you a YouTube journalist or are you a real accredited journalist from an actual accredited institution,” emphasizing that he only wanted to converse with media outlets of notoriety.

OMG emailed Sordi with media credentials and our inquiry, as requested, but have yet to receive a response.