From Hawaii to Vermont, devastating weather events are occurring one after another across the country, leaving Americans in desperate need of help.
“We’ve got 3 feet of water in restaurants and four feet of water in hotel rooms. I’m out front right now and we’ve got debris everywhere,” said Anna King, a resident and business owner in Steinhatchee, Florida. ,
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, known as FEMA, is rushing to respond.
“We started with atmospheric rivers in California in January, extreme tornadoes in the spring, wildfires, and now we are in peak hurricane season,” said FEMA Administrator Dean Criswell. “And because of the extreme weather they’re experiencing, we’ve received an unprecedented number of disaster requests from governors. This is our new normal. This is the operational pace we find ourselves in.”
since 1979FEMA is coordinating federal relief efforts in disaster areas across the US, from tornadoes in the Heartland to hurricanes in the Gulf.
When this happens, FEMA works to provide people with necessities like water, food, shelter and even financial assistance – all of which are vital but expensive. But costs are rising, and FEMA’s disaster relief funds for 2023 are shrinking rapidly.
“FEMA’s disaster relief fund, which as of this morning has a balance of $3.4 billion,” Criswell said.
While there are still four months left in the year, that’s not enough money for any other major disasters. So as Hurricane Idalia approached, Criswell announced she was directing her team to implement “urgent needs funding” restrictions, which basically prioritize funding for life-saving measures. These restrictions allow FEMA to temporarily pause funding for long-term recovery projects and risk mitigation projects in order to focus on what is needed at this time.
“This means that FEMA will prioritize available funding to meet the immediate needs of survivors as well as critical response efforts to the Idalia, Maui fires, and any other extreme weather events during the remaining weeks of the fiscal year. Will give those who can come before us without any hindrance, ”Creswell said.
But Criswell warned that more assistance will be needed from Congress.
“I want to emphasize that this urgently needed funding will ensure we can continue to respond to disasters, but it is not a permanent solution,” Criswell said. The supplemental request the Administration has made to FEMA Congress should work with us on that.”
In early August, the Biden administration issued a request to Congress for an additional $12 billion to bolster FEMA’s disaster relief funding.
“How can we not respond? Oh my God. How can we not respond to these needs? And so, I believe, even though some of our friends on the Hill have talked a lot about the cost, we still do Do it. This is the United States of America,” President Biden said.
It is important to note that this is not the first time that FEMA funds have been reduced so much that immediate needs funding, or ‘INF’, has been restricted.
As of 2022 Congressional Research Service According to the report, FEMA implemented INF restrictions after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August 2017, because “the balance in the disaster relief fund was reduced by $2.8 billion” just before Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida.
A few weeks later, in October, FEMA limited INF restrictions after receiving a “$7.4 billion supplement” to disaster relief funding.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding FEMA’s request for additional funding in 2023, some say they are still confident FEMA will come through for them. For many people, that help can’t come quickly enough.
“I’m waiting for FEMA to come here, you know, tell me what I can claim or what I can do,” said Grace Kramer, a resident of St. Petersburg, Florida.