Prince George’s County Executive Defends $43,000 Emergency Hotel Stay During Storm

Prince George’s County Executive Aisha Braveboy is defending a roughly $43,000 bill for a three-night emergency relocation to the Hotel at the University of Maryland during Winter Storm Fern, saying the move allowed senior leaders to make rapid operational decisions while the county’s administration building was closed after an electrical fire.

County invoices show payment for a three-night, three-room-conference operation that included charges for 25 hotel rooms at $149 per night, a conference room at $300 per day, and an $18,000 audiovisual setup described as used to monitor road conditions. The line items reported add to $30,075, leaving an unexplained gap between those figures and the invoices’ reported total of roughly $43,000. The county has not provided a full, itemized accounting in the material released so far.

Braveboy said the emergency team relocated to the hotel so officials “could make rapid decisions as the storm intensified.” She told reporters, “There were a lot of decisions that had to be made in real time.” Braveboy also stressed the tempo of the work while at the hotel: “We were up at 7, 7:30 in the morning. You have my schedule,” and defended the cost as proportionally small, saying “You’re talking about a fraction of those costs” when compared with an estimated overall storm response that she expects to exceed $16 million. Braveboy added she “would make the same decision again under similar circumstances.”

Those explanations have not quieted frustration in parts of Prince George’s County still feeling the storm’s effects. Residents in Temple Hills, Fort Washington, Clinton and District Heights reported being stuck inside their homes days after the storm and said they had not seen plows as of the fourth day following the storm. One resident described the situation as a safety concern, saying, “It’s nerve-wracking because I live in a community of old people, so it’s not like we can just get up and shovel.” Braveboy acknowledged the difficulty of cleanup, noting the county faced “two to four inches of compacted ice” in addition to snow, and said the county was placing “a special focus at this time on our central and southern part of the county, which has historically been left behind during storms,” adding “We know that that’s not acceptable.”

The hotel move and the invoice total have drawn public criticism because of the apparent disconnect between the billed line items and the reported total. Key unresolved questions include the full itemization of the hotel charges, the vendor and scope behind the $18,000 audiovisual setup, and the procurement approvals that authorized the three-night, three-location emergency operation. For residents, the immediate concerns remain clear: when will neighborhood streets be plowed, how will elderly and mobility-limited neighbors be helped, and how will county leaders account for emergency spending. County officials have signaled the storm response will be costly; residents should expect follow-up detail on invoices, procurement approvals and an after-action accounting as cleanup continues.