Federal agencies have enough short-term resources to respond to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, but Congress will need to replenish those funds later this year, when attention turns to the expensive and complex process of rebuilding.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency had $11 billion left in its Disaster Relief Fund as of Tuesday, out of $20 billion it received on Oct. 1, Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters Wednesday. That’s enough to cover response to Helene and Milton, she said. But as the agency burns through its budget, it may need to restrict funding for longer-term recovery efforts—for other places affected by wildfires, tornadoes, and floods—in order to keep money available for the hurricane response, she said.
While federal officials are assuring disaster survivors they have enough resources to respond to the hurricanes, Congress will have to provide more funding to FEMA and the Small Business Administration later this year. The question is how soon lawmakers will act, and how much money they’ll provide for longer-term work starting later this year.
“The funding is there to support Helene and Milton,” Criswell told reporters on a conference call Wednesday. “What I want to make sure is we have enough funding to support another event, considering we are still in hurricane season.”
Long-Term Shortfalls
President Joe Biden and others have already called for more action from Congress. Disaster aid—for both short-term needs and the more complex, expensive process of rebuilding—will be central to year-end spending discussions in the lame duck session beginning Nov. 12.
The Biden administration asked for $9 billion more for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund for longer-term disaster recovery work in October 2023, a request that’s languished in Congress for about a year. That request still stands, though officials will have to add further money to the request, Criswell said.
Reimbursement to state and local governments, among other groups, for more than 100 disasters is at risk of further delay, Criswell said, if Congress doesn’t act and if FEMA imposes funding restrictions to concentrate resources on the hurricane response. If FEMA races through the remaining $11 billion quickly, the agency may impose “Immediate Needs Funding” restrictions, in which officials focus their resources on life-saving activities and put off reimbursements for longer-term recovery projects. The delayed funding could affect FEMA’s response to an “incredibly busy tornado season earlier this year,” Criswell said, along with flooding this spring and wildfires across the West.
FEMA imposed “Immediate Needs Funding” on Aug. 7 when it ran low on funds, which lasted through September, until Congress refreshed FEMA’s budget with a continuing resolution that runs through Dec. 20.
The Small Business Administration faces a shortfall, totaling about $1.6 billion, even sooner. The agency’s disaster loan program “will run out of funding in a matter of weeks and well before Congress is planning to reconvene,” Biden told congressional leaders in an Oct. 4 letter. Congress will have to provide more funding, he said. Congressional leaders have not announced plans to return to Washington, though both chambers could pass a bill through unanimous consent—if no members object—without bringing lawmakers back to the Capitol.
Multiple Bills, Months of Assessments
Congress will likely need to move multiple bills, starting in November or December and stretching into 2025, to fully fund the long-term recovery effort, said Stan Gimont, a former director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Block Grant Assistance and now a senior adviser at Hagerty Consulting.
An initial bill would need to provide more funding for FEMA, which will start running low before the Dec. 20 funding deadline, if Milton is as damaging as expected, Gimont said. But it will take much longer to calculate the damage to buildings, roads, and utilities, likely prompting a more thorough follow-up spending plan from Congress, he said.
Housing costs can usually be estimated in eight to 12 weeks, Gimont said. But it can take even longer to determine all the dollars needed to repair and rebuild roads, buildings, and utilities, he said.
“The long-term, big numbers, they’re not going to know what they are for some time — months,” Gimont said.
Speaker
FEMA Leads Initial Response
Federal disaster recovery funding starts with FEMA leading much of the work. The majority of federal disaster aid goes through the agency, under two laws—the Stafford Act and the National Flood Insurance Act—according to the Congressional Research Service. The Disaster Relief Fund and National Flood Insurance Program funds comprise most of FEMA’s budget in a typical year.
More agencies get involved later in the process, when officials have more detailed damage estimates and start on a wider variety of rebuilding work. Those agencies and programs include: the Small Business Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program, the Federal Highway Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Some non-FEMA disaster relief agencies already faced financial strain before Hurricane Helene.
The Federal Highway Administration’s emergency relief fund had $218 million available and a backlog of $3.6 billion as of last week, before any requests from Hurricane Helene. After the storm, the agency sent $134 million in emergency funds to North Carolina, Tennessee, and South Carolina — further reducing the availability of funds as Milton rolls in.
Helene Road Repair Hinges on Emergency Fund Already in Deficit
About $94 million in additional highway emergency funds will become available in the coming weeks from the 2021 infrastructure law (Public Law 117-58), but the Biden administration has pushed Congress for billions more to replenish that emergency relief fund. Reconstruction of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge is expected to cost about $1.7 billion, which led the administration to ask Congress for an additional $4 billion to respond to the bridge collapse, Maui wildfires, and Midwestern tornadoes.
Biden Seeks Nearly $4 Billion for Key Bridge, Disaster Relief
There’s also been a call for more Community Development Block Grant money from HUD. The CDBG disaster relief program doesn’t have a regular budget and relies solely on supplemental spending bills. Ten senators from eights states asked congressional leaders to include CDBG funds in the stopgap, led by Sen.
Debunking Myths
Agencies and some lawmakers have also tried to fight off a spate of misinformation about the the response to the storms. FEMA has posted a webpage debunking false rumors that the agency doesn’t have enough funding, that officials are confiscating property, and that FEMA is diverting funds to international aid.
Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans have spread a misleading narrative over the past week that FEMA has redirected funding from disaster relief to help resettle migrants. In reality, the money for migrant needs comes from a separate, much smaller account that started when Trump was in office. When the Trump administration requested emergency border money in 2019, Congress passed supplemental funding that included $30 million for FEMA grants to local governments and nonprofits that aid recent border-crossers. Congress revamped it as the Shelter and Services Program in fiscal 2023 and funneled the appropriations through Customs and Border Protection while keeping FEMA in charge of managing grant applications.
Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) also publisheda list of responses to myths about the response to Hurricane Helene, refuting false claims that the storm was “geoengineered by the government” to seize lithium deposits in Chimney Rock, N.C., and that FEMA can seize people’s property.
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