GAINESVILLE, FL. — As a growing portion of the South is overwhelmed with hurricane-related crises, personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been spread increasingly thin. And while public officials in the hardest hit states say they’re taking steps to meet the moment, they’re anticipating a need for more help from the federal government — and soon.
With Hurricane Milton expected to make landfall Wednesday, demand for federal aid may push FEMA to its limits. On Tuesday, the agency said in a report that only 9% of its workforce — which amounts to 1205 people — is available to turn its attention to the imminent storm.
On Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, waved off the staff shortages, arguing that the state would be equipped to respond.
“In terms of [FEMA] staffers and some of the bureaucracy, fortunately for Florida, we have a machine. This is something that we work on. We know we’ve got to deal with it being a tropical state,” DeSantis told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “I’m not sure how much of an effect it’s going to have on us because we’re going to have a robust response.”
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FEMA staff insisted it is prepared to “fully support Florida.” The agency said Tuesday it has set up seven incident-management teams, eight search and rescue teams and five bases with food and water in Florida ahead of Milton. It has 20 million meals and 40 million liters of water ready to deploy as needed, according to a Tuesday press release. It also said it is working with response teams from other federal agencies.
It’s part of a broader federal response after President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for the state on Monday, allowing FEMA to begin coordinating disaster relief plans. Multiple incident management and swift water rescue teams from FEMA and the U.S. Coast Guard are stationed and ready to go. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency are set to assist by providing debris removal and wastewater expertise. Thousands of National Guard troops have been deployed. And the Department of Defense has provided more than 300 emergency response vehicles.
Those resources are on top of the response team already working around the clock on the ground. There are more than 7,400 federal workers, including 1,500 FEMA staff, already responding to Hurricane Helene — which made landfall on September 26 — across the South, according to FEMA administrators. “FEMA will not divert personnel or resources from these ongoing responses,” the officials added.
A good portion of FEMA’s workforce is focused on Helene recovery efforts in North Carolina, where the agency has already helped thousands of residents.
“The state and federal government are working hard to clear as many roads as possible, but many are still out of commission and it’s making it hard to even get FEMA assistance out to folks,” North Carolina state Rep. Allen Buansi told NOTUS. “While FEMA has been doing a lot, there’s still a lot more to do.”
North Carolina’s general assembly convenes on Wednesday to vote on emergency appropriations for relief efforts in the hardest hit western part of the state. But Buansi, a Democrat, said he and other lawmakers hope Congress also steps up to offer additional assistance given FEMA’s staff and funding shortages.
The stopgap spending measure Congress approved in September funded FEMA’s disaster relief fund to its base level of $20 billion. While Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has indicated that FEMA may be able to respond to immediate needs from Hurricane Helene and even Hurricane Milton, he said that the scale of the storms means that Congress likely needs to approve additional money to make it through the hurricane season.
“We have the funding we need to meet the challenge of Hurricane Helene and the challenge of Hurricane Milton,” Mayorkas told MSNBC in an interview on Monday. “But we are operating on a continuing resolution that is not stable funding for the long haul and therefore we need a real budget and not a Band-Aid.”
Some members of Congress are calling for a return to D.C. to pass supplemental disaster funding, but Speaker Mike Johnson knocked down the idea that the House would reconvene before the election.
Meanwhile, the storms are happening just weeks ahead of the high-stakes election, and Florida’s Congressional Republicans have taken to the airwaves to criticize the Biden administration on one of the GOP’s biggest talking points this cycle: immigration. Republicans are accusing the agencies of spending money on migrants instead of flood victims.
“Over a billion dollars has been allocated for illegals rather than prioritizing those hardest hit,” Florida Rep. Kat Cammack told Newsmax this week. “Our friends in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee after Hurricane Helene are furious about this.”
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who recently filed a bipartisan bill to increase funding to FEMA, sent a letter on Monday to FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell saying that future funds “must only be used on disaster recovery and must not be used on the illegal immigrant crisis.”
FEMA addressed the claim directly, writing, “No money is being diverted from disaster response needs” on its new Hurricane Rumor Response page.
Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat who was formerly the director of the state’s Division of Energy Management, said there’s no doubt resources will be spread thin.
“There’s absolutely going to be a resource issue,” Moskowitz told CNN this week. “We saw when we had Harvey, Irma and Maria we had a resource issue to respond — and we’re going to see that same resource issue.”
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Calen Razor and Claire Heddles are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.
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