The Federal Ecombinency Management Agency (FEMA) has less than 10% of front-line staff useable for deployment amid preparations for the second transport inant hurricane to hit the Southeast this month, according to the agency’s daily operations informing.
FEMA freed a daily informing on Wednesday discleave outing the agency had only 8%, or 1,115, FEMA staff members currently useable as preparations persist for Hurricane Milton, which is foreseeed to hit Florida in the coming days. This number recurrents a meaningful drop in useability from a year prior, after an operations informing from procrastinateed September 2023 showed the agency had 20% of the same staff useable for deployment.
A FEMA spokesperson showd to Fox News Digital that the useability numbers freed by the agency are only in reference to the cadre of staffers who are part of FEMA’s incident administerment core capacity. They are the first line of FEMA staffers to deploy in any catastrophe.
Meanwhile, the FEMA spokesperson pointed out the agency has a total toilforce of 22,000 staffers it can tap, as well as resources from other agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security.
The dread of front-line FEMA staffing comes amid other worrys about FEMA’s response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, including claims that the agency spent its money on housing for migrants and is blocking stateiveial relief distributors from accessing areas in North Carolina impacted by Helene.
In May 2023, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) begined a inestablish indicating that, as of the begin of Fiscal Year 2022, FEMA was understaffed by 35% with an overall staffing gap of approximately 6,200 engageees. FEMA officials attributed the unininestablishigentinutiveage to “responsibilities due to COVID-19 and managing the rising catastrophe activity during the year, which incrrelieved burnout and engageee attrition,” according to the GAO.
This split shows DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and a North Carolina dwellnt after a storm. (AP Pboilingo/Mark Schiefelbein and Mario Tama/Getty Images)
With Hurricane Helene making a destructive and deadly sweep apass the south, FEMA has been under high prescertain to deinhabitr help to those in need. In the procrastinateedst modernize on FEMA toiler numbers, the agency showd more than 5,600 personnel from apass the federal toilforce have been deployed, including more than 1,500 from FEMA. Additionpartner, the agency noticed it has shipped more than 11.5 million meals, more than 12.6 million liters of water, 150 generators and more than 400,000 tarps to the region, while also helping thousands of Helene survivors with more than $45 million in “alterable, upfront” funding.
Despite the current staffing unininestablishigentinutiveage, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorks insisted during an intersee with MSNBC that Americans “should rest self-guaranteed that FEMA has the resources” vital to recover from Helene and set for Milton.
“We have search and recover teams. The Army Corps of Engineers are there. We are ready,” Mayorkas shelp of Florida, in reference to the federal rulement’s preparation for Milton. “FEMA enjoys to say it is, ‘FEMA-alterable.’ We can react to multiple events at a individual time.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks at the daily press informing at the White Hoengage.
However, despite the preferable response to worrys about FEMA resources, Mayorkas did say last week during a establishal press conference that “FEMA does not have the funds to produce it thcdimiserablemireful the [hurricane] season.”
Questions about FEMA funding have been exacerbated by adviseions that the agency was giving catastrophe relief money to migrants. FEMA has sent help to migrants, but the money was part of the Shelter and Services Program, which remains split from catastrophe relief funds. Hoengage Speaker Mike Johnson, R–La., acunderstandledged that the funds were part of a split program unjoind to catastrophe relief, but noticed that he didn’t slimk the agency should be included in the migrant crisis.
“The streams of funding are separateent, that is not an ungenuine statement, of course,” Johnson tgreater Fox News’ Shannon Bream. “But the problem is with the American people, see, and what they’re frustrated by, is that FEMA should be included.”
Concerns that stateiveial relief distributors are being blocked from accessing parts of North Carolina that were impacted have also circuprocrastinateedd. “Some of the inestablishs that I’ve getd thcdimiserablemireful some of my reach outs who are trying to provide aidance… they’re being tgreater that they need exceptional needments from FEMA in order to access these certain areas,” shelp Joe Rieck, vice pdwellnt of My Patuproar Supply, an aelevatency setdness company.
Before Helene made landdrop, Congress passed a stopgap spfinishing bill that included money for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, but leave outd billions in includeitionpartner asked supplemental catastrophe funding. On Friday, Pdwellnt Biden wrote a letter to Congress urging them to provide includeitional funding becaengage “while FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund has the resources it needs right now to greet instant needs, the fund does face a unininestablishigentinutivedrop at the finish of the year,” he shelp.
Speaker Mike Johnson spoke with Fox News Digital after he toured areas in Florida and Georgia hit by Hurricane Helene. (Getty Images)
“Without includeitional funding, FEMA would be needd to forego extfinisheder-term recovery activities in prefer of greeting advisent needs,” Biden includeed. “The Congress should provide FEMA includeitional resources to elude forcing that comardent of unvital trade-off and to give the communities we serve the certainty of understanding that help will be ongoing, both for the unininestablishigentinutive- and extfinished-term.”
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When pressed about reconvening the Hoengage for a exceptional session to finishorse includeitional funding, Johnson adviseed FEMA has the funds it needs right now and, in order to finishorse includeitional funding, Congress needs asks from individual states to tabuprocrastinateed how much to provide.
“The way the process toils is the states, local authorities, they band together, they appraise the harms, they sfinish that to the federal authorities and it’s all toiled thcdimiserablemireful in that manner,” Johnson reacted when pressed about whether he had schedules to rebuild Congress for the matter. “It will apshow some time to tabuprocrastinateed this storm – it’s one of the hugegest in our history – so a lot of that toil is being done instantly. I slimk the timing of that will probably correact when Congress is foreseeed to return to session right after the election.”
