Mayor Pete orders citizens to stop using drones to find stranded victims as feds fumble hurricane response

United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, announced on Wednesday temporary flight restrictions "near or around rescue and recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene."

Buttigieg stated, "Our goal is to make sure that funding is no obstacle to very quickly get people the relief that they need and deserve."

'This is biblical-level devastation. This is apocalyptic, the things that we see out there.'

"There's also some safety issues that come up," he continued. "For example, temporary flight restrictions to make sure that the airspace is clear for any flights or drone activity that might be involved in helping to allow those emergency responders to do their job."

The Transportation Department posted a video of Buttigieg's comments, adding, "Drone pilots: Do not fly your drone near or around rescue and recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene. Interfering with emergency response operations impacts search and rescue operations on the ground."

During a Wednesday press briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed that the federal government lacks the funds to fully respond to such disasters, Blaze News previously reported.

"We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds," Mayorkas remarked.

America First Legal reported that the Biden-Harris administration's Federal Emergency Management Agency blew a significant portion of its funding on illegal immigrants.

"The Biden-Harris FEMA spent over $1 BILLION on funding illegal aliens," AFL stated.

Many have expressed frustration and dissatisfaction with the federal government's disaster relief response for American citizens residing in areas devastated by Hurricane Helene.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) torched the administration for its lackluster efforts to help Americans, particularly those living in rural areas.

Kemp told WRDW, "When the first emergency declarations came down, there was only 11 counties in that. A lot of people were outraged, including me, because there was such devastation in up to 90 counties."

"So we called the White House. We spoke to the president's chief of staff, the FEMA administrator and said, 'Look, you're sending the signal that you're not paying attention to some of these rural communities,'" he continued.

At least 200 people have been confirmed dead.

"It was a massive storm, and we're dealing with things statewide, even the metro-Atlanta area had record flooding. We had mudslides. We had to evacuate people below lakes and ponds up in the northeast part of the state, so we've been dealing with it," Kemp told the news outlet.

Tim Kennedy, co-founder of Save Our Allies, recently told Fox Business that FEMA is getting in the way of his team's rescue efforts.

"Where is the federal response and the plan?" Kennedy questioned.

When asked whether FEMA was on the ground, he responded, "I mean, they're present. They're in the way. They're directly interrupting our ability to conduct missions and operations."

Kennedy explained that he had attempted to place a couple of people in a hotel earlier this week, but he was unable to do so because federal employees had booked all of the rooms.

"This is biblical-level devastation. This is apocalyptic, the things that we see out there," he added.

On Thursday, Blaze News' Julio Rosas joined Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Rosas noted that a group of veterans and locals had banded together to provide relief to those in need, making deliveries with civilian helicopters, UTVs, and ATVs.

"When I asked about the feds response, one guy said: What response?" Rosas posted on X.

When asked about his impression of the federal government's response to the disaster, Mills told Rosas, "It's obvious that FEMA has continued to drop the ball."

Mills explained that FEMA used to focus on providing disaster relief but has since been recruited also to handle the mass illegal immigration crisis.

"They're peeling off over 900 million plus dollars that's going towards immigration resettlement, which outside of what their actual scope should be," Mills stated.

He credited Americans for coming together to help one another, saying the federal government has adopted an "America last agenda that we have to change."

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