From Scientific American E&E News:
A key FEMA disaster fund and state insurance programs could run out of money to finance disaster recovery and pay claims, respectively, as hurricane and wildfire seasons begin
FEMA estimates that its Disaster Relief Fund will run out of money by August — when the Atlantic and Gulf coasts face their worst hurricane risk and when wildfires tend to be fiercest in the West.
The fund is a multibillion-dollar account that helps states pay for cleanup and rebuilding after major disasters. FEMA also gives money from the fund to people in disaster zones to cover a portion of emergency costs such as shelter, home repairs and supplies. The payments are typically a few thousand dollars.
FEMA’s latest monthly report shows the fund reaching a deficit of $159 million in August and $6.3 billion in September unless Congress replenishes the account.
The above article is from June 2, 2023 — before the Maui fires, and Hurricane Hilary. And now Idalia is expected to hit the West Coast of Florida as a category 3 storm.
From Federal Drive with Tom Temin speaking with WTOP Capitol Hill Correspondent Mitchell Miller.
Tom Temin Tell us more about the FEMA situation. They need money. It can only come from Congress. So what’s the situation there, Mitchell?
Mitchell Miller Right. Well, this was even before the disaster on the island of Maui that the FEMA Director Deanne Criswell was telling Congress that FEMA could run out of money. And this was earlier in the summer and that was before Maui happened, before the heavy storms in Southern California. And who knows what’s going to happen throughout the hurricane season. So this is a situation that she has been sending up the flare on. And really, Congress has to come up with some money to do this. The president has proposed $12 billion in disaster aid and we’ll see where that goes. Even before that was proposed, Florida Senator Marco Rubio had site disaster aid in a separate measure. But it does seem like it’s going to have to be folded into some larger legislation. But you look at the type of situation that FEMA has been dealing with in the last decade or so. Criswell told Congress earlier this summer that FEMA in 2010 had about 100 declared disasters to support. Now, more than a decade later, that number has tripled. So they’re dealing with natural disasters almost throughout the entire year, whereas before they kind of knew that certain months were going to be heavier. And then obviously the hurricane season is huge. So I think there will be support, as there always is for disaster aid within Congress. But they’re going to have to move around a lot of funding. FEMA does have a little bit more flexibility than a lot of federal agencies have. So we’ll have to see what happens in the coming weeks when lawmakers get back.
Tom Temin Yeah, So basically, they’re dealing with almost an average of a disaster a day.
Mitchell Miller Yeah. And they’re huge. Well, let’s not forget that it was just a year ago that in Florida that disaster with the hurricane caused more than $100 billion in damage. And while the damage has been extensive from the wildfires in Maui, that is dwarfed by what happened just a year ago. And then, as you mentioned, they’re just rolling disasters, one right after the other. And it really has changed for FEMA in how they respond to everything because they’re dealing with something all the time.
emphasis added
The Scientific American article notes that FEMA may be forced to prioritize payments for immediate needs over long term recovery.
...If the disaster fund gets close to zero, FEMA enacts a policy of “immediate needs funding” that delays payments to states for long-term recovery and reserves money for emergency response that protects lives.
...FEMA last imposed immediate needs funding in August 2017, as Hurricane Harvey was causing tens of billions of dollars of damage in Texas. The disaster fund balance fell to $2.8 billion.
It’s not just FEMA that is getting cash-strapped by near continuous natural disasters*; state insurance programs are in trouble, and the private sector insurance industry is moving to drop coverage for certain kinds of damage in particular locales.
* How long can we keep calling them “natural” when human activity is amplifying them?
It’s going to be necessary for Congress to appropriate more money — except the House Freedom Caucus is ready to force a government shutdown over demands for massive (unspecified) spending cuts for… reasons. (They also want impeachment hearings on Biden going into 2024.) Meanwhile the GOP presidential candidates in the first debate did their best to skate around climate. Viveck Ramaswamy went so far as to call climate change a hoax; some are touting him as the future of the GOP.
To put it bluntly, we’re in a competition here. Which will break first — FEMA’s ability to deal with disasters, or the ability of Republicans to make the situation worse?