WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris is at the center of a new storm for skipping annual hurricane season preparedness briefings that were a regular part of her predecessor Mike Pence’s calendar – with critics arguing the omission reflects how she has served as president could govern.

Opponents of the Democratic presidential candidate highlighted the lack of briefings as the death toll from Hurricane Helene in the Southeast exceeded 143 – as Harris returned to Washington from Las Vegas on Monday to attend a FEMA briefing and a trip to the city on Wednesday Storm-hit Augusta, Georgia, booked .

“Harris has not shown the ability — or willingness — to do the non-political parts of the job that have a big impact on our lives,” a former Pence aide told The Post, as criticism of the bland federal response on Helene became a criticism of the election campaign problem. “Why should Americans trust her to serve in the Oval Office?”

Then-President Donald Trump and Pence held hurricane season preparation meetings with federal emergency officials in each of their four years in office. President Biden had similar meetings in 2021, 2022 and 2023 – although Harris does not appear to have attended or held parallel events.

Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told The Post that annual visits by the president and vice president are important and that the omission was reminiscent of Harris’ role as Biden’s point person on illegal immigration.

“It just fits into a larger pattern,” Wolf said.

“It doesn’t look like she wants to roll up her sleeves and actually get into governing the country, which is difficult. It’s not glamorous. It’s a lot of briefings.”

“My guess,” he added, “is that she would behave the same way (as president), which is hands off – ‘I’m not going to run the country.'” I’ll put together a team and they’ll run it, and I’m going to kind of talk about what is obviously a very different model than what President Trump has done.”

Wolf, who held a number of high-level emergency management positions in the Trump-Pence administration, said the briefings were intended to keep FEMA employees on their toes – and also force their managers to analyze anticipated problems – while also facilitating Support from above.

“It’s like any other job where your boss asks you specific questions – you become more motivated to do a better job,” Wolf said.

“It’s not that they’re doing a lesser job. All they know is that their work is not given any meaning.”

FEMA is currently struggling to get the situation under control in areas most affected by flooding, including western North Carolina.

“The people of Western North Carolina rightly feel abandoned,” Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), whose district includes some of the worst-hit areas, told NewsNation on Monday.

“The response has been disappointing,” Edwards said. “We started bringing in some resources today, but the storm passed about 80 hours ago. The storm passed around 10 a.m. Friday. We knew the storm was coming and it’s only today that we’re seeing the first FEMA workers, trailers and helicopters arrive.”

It’s unclear why exactly Harris didn’t attend Biden’s hurricane preparedness briefings in the first three years of her term, or why she didn’t stand her ground — as Pence did for a year.

Harris’ office noted her role in responding to various natural disasters, but did not dispute Republicans’ central claim that she had not held preparation meetings for hurricane season.

Spokesman Ernesto Apreza noted three events focused on Hurricane Harris, including her visit to Houston in July after Hurricane Beryl; a visit to the University of Miami in April 2023 during which Harris announced $562 million in federal funding for “climate resilient projects” in 149 coastal cities managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and a briefing by FEMA and NOAA leaders in Miami in August 2022 on climate resilience.

“Vice President Harris receives regular briefings from relevant federal agencies and officials on emerging storms, other natural disasters and the federal government’s response efforts,” Apreza said.

“She also visited FEMA Headquarters and NOAA’s National Hurricane Center to see preparations firsthand, and visited the emergency operations center in Houston following Hurricane Beryl. The Vice President’s top priority is ensuring communities affected by natural disasters have the resources they need to respond.”

Pence’s interest before each hurricane season was “almost like a driving factor” in the previous administration, Wolf said.

“It requires the FEMA administrator to get together with his senior leadership and say, ‘Okay, here are our critical issues that we’re going to brief the president and vice president on.’ Does everyone agree? … This is what we are pursuing, this is where we will need help, this is where we are deployed… we are pre-positioned here, here and here. I’m going to ask the Defense Department for assets here.’”

Wolf recalled: “Vice President Pence often said, ‘Great.’ That sounds good. “If you have any problems obtaining these assets, let me know.”

“It seems like they underestimated the severity of the storm. And I’m not sure how you can do that with all the technology today,” Wolf said of the current response.

“They have a lot of assets and resources pre-positioned in Florida, that’s where it ends up. All right, but they didn’t think about the downstream impacts as much as they needed to. And now it’s time to catch up.

“I have seen internal information from FEMA that all of their (categories of response needs) are still red in the state of North Carolina and we are now three days later (Helene).”

In their first year, Pence and Trump led a meeting at FEMA headquarters in August 2017 with governors and emergency officials to discuss “the country’s preparedness for hurricane season.” In June 2018, Trump, Pence and the administration’s Cabinet secretaries met again at FEMA headquarters for another preparatory meeting.

Trump had a private briefing with officials in June 2019 and Pence visited the National Hurricane Center in Florida that same month for an update. In May 2020, despite the raging COVID-19 pandemic, Trump and Pence hosted the FEMA director in the Oval Office for a briefing on hurricane season.

“Vice President Harris was also apparently made hurricane czar because she showed little concern for Americans in the face of these deadly storms,” the former Pence adviser said, referring to her role as a leader of Biden’s efforts to reduce illegal immigration , which instead increased.

“The executive branch involves walking and chewing gum, and Mike Pence has managed to juggle these briefings and a re-election campaign while overseeing the administration’s response to a global pandemic.”