A Deeply Underfunded FEMA

Like so many agencies, FEMA is massively underfunded and desperately needs massive infusions of government funding from a government that struggles to get anything done.

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency is rapidly spending its disaster funding as it responds to back-to-back major hurricanes Helene and Milton – coming on top of a nonstop disaster year filled with tornadoes, wildfires and floods.

After getting a recent infusion of around $20 billion from Congress to respond to hurricane season, FEMA is now down to $11 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters Wednesday. That means the agency spent about $9 billion of its recently appropriated money in a little over a week – before Milton even made landfall Wednesday night.

This rapid spend rate is a reflection of just how many earlier disasters the agency is dealing with in addition to Milton and Helene. And it may mean Congress needs to appropriate billions more in disaster funding for the agency earlier than expected.

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In short, a lot of extreme weather disasters have hit different parts of the US this year.

The current tally for billion-dollar extreme weather disasters in the US is hovering around 23 or 24 so far this year, according to Adam Smith, a climatologist with NOAA who helps compile the government’s count of expensive extreme weather disasters. That number is unofficial and likely to change, but it includes hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton, and it could possibly grow to add a separate complex of earlier severe summer storms.

But there’s a lot more than hurricanes. Wildfires are still burning in multiple parts of California and other western states. Hurricane Beryl hit Texas early in the summer, and Beryl’s remnants dumped rain and caused deadly flooding in states as far north as northern New England. And Texas and other states experienced a spate of vicious thunderstorms and tornadoes this spring – wreaking havoc and causing power outages.

“This is the most open disasters that I have seen with FEMA, and it’s because we’re seeing an increase in the number of events,” Criswell said Wednesday. “We had an incredibly busy tornado season earlier this year. We had catastrophic and historic levels of flooding across many states this spring as well. We’ve had wildfires across much of the West.”

This will be a bigger and bigger issue as we move forward. But hey, I’m sure Republicans will really take care of this problem when they take the Senate next year……