FEMA hired a one-person company to send 30 million meals to Puerto Rico. Instead, it got 'a logistical nightmare.'

Puerto Ricans stand in line for food and water in September.
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

After Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, many islanders did not have access to food. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency's attempts to swiftly feed them didn't exactly go off without a hitch.

In one unsettlingly illustrative example, which The New York Times detailed on Tuesday, FEMA hired Tribute Contracting LLC in October, two weeks after the hurricane, to deliver 30 million meals to Puerto Rico. A little more than two weeks later, Tribute, which was set to earn $156 million for its work, had only made good on delivering 50,000 meals.

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Kelly O'Meara Morales

Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.