UPDATE: This article has been updated to include further information shared by Wyoming Office of Homeland Security Director Lynn Budd.
CASPER, Wyo. — Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon criticized the federal government during a press conference on Friday, April 3. He said that states have been facing difficulties securing personal protective equipment orders amid the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
Gordon specifically noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been cancelling PPE orders placed by states, including Wyoming.
“I’ll be very honest about this,” he said. “Every state at this point is finding that the federal government is stepping in and cancelling or orders for PPE. It is very frustrating, extremely frustrating when we have orders that are supposed to be on their way and we find that FEMA, the agency that is supposed to help us, has pre-empted that order.”
Gordon said he was aware that orders were being prioritized in areas more significantly hit by the COVID-19 coronavirus.
“A lot of those orders are being distributed to the east where the hotspots are and we don’t deny that those are important,” he said. New York, Louisiana, Baltimore, place like that. We understand.”
“But as I said to President [Donald] Trump at the beginning of this week: ‘When you are doing this, Mr. President, please remember that you have the opportunity to be able to deliver some of that to Wyoming, to Montana, to North and South Dakota so that we can get ahead of this and we aren’t playing catch-up like the rest of the country.'”
Wyoming Office of Homeland Security Lynn Director Budd said her office was aware of the difficulty with FEMA pre-empting orders which Gordon was referring to.
“We’ve seen it at the state level as well as the county level,” she said. “It is disturbing. We’re doing everything we can to come up with innovative solutions, including ordering directly from China.”
“So we are working very hard to try to find a way to get more supplies to Wyoming and as the governor said, it is not just Wyoming, it is across the nation and we have to figure out how we can get first in line.”
Budd said earlier in the conference as the Wyoming Department of Health and the Wyoming Office of Homeland security had distributed the following as of Friday:
- 47,455 M95 masks
- 83,650 surgical masks
- 44,400 gloves
- 3,804 face shields
- 14,635 isolation gowns
She said these supplies came from both the state’s inventory as well as the strategic national stockpile. Budd added that the state was “in the process of receiving” a third shipment from the strategic national stockpile.
“That will likely be the last shipment from the SNS,” she added. “That will be distributed in the next coming week.”
Budd said that the state will continue to distribute PPE throughout the state as supplies become available.
She said that the state has placed PPE orders through FEMA. Budd said that states are responsible for 25% of the cost of such orders. That is different from the strategic national stockpile, to which Budd said there is no cost.
Budd said that FEMA representatives are embedded in the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security to help assist with the process of placing requests.
