FEMA director says emergency relief funds are running low

The Federal Emergency Management Agency director said Monday that a recent string of storms and natural disasters has left the disaster relief fund nearly depleted just weeks before hurricane season begins. 

Craig Fugate, briefing reporters at the White House, said that the agency is still providing immediate disaster relief, but that storms and flooding in Tennessee, combined with tornadoes and other events, have led FEMA to stop funding permanent work from previous disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

The Office of Management and Budget has requested $5.1 billion for FEMA for the remainder of the fiscal year, and the House has already approved that supplemental package. The Senate has yet to consider it, and the agency is operating in the meantime off “immediate needs” funding.

Fugate said in Tennessee, where he expects the recovery “to be substantial,” 23,000 people have registered with FEMA for individual assistance, mostly from destroyed homes and a lack of flood insurance. As of Tuesday, FEMA had approved $51 million for that assistance, Fugate said. The director said he expects more people to request assistance.

Fugate said that the disaster relief fund started running low in February, and his team is now limiting its work to addressing the most pressing needs in ongoing disasters.

“So we have limited our funds to just those things that are necessary to do a response, to meet initial needs, take care of individuals, the survivors of disaster, but we have stopped all of our permanent work until we get a supplemental to support that,” Fugate said.

Fugate said that the agency is “still fine” in responding to the disaster in Tennessee, “but it is finite.”

State newspapers and state officials in the hardest-hit areas have generally praised FEMA’s work in the area. FEMA’s performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was roundly criticized.

The FEMA director, who held the same position in Florida for many years, said that the once-maligned agency is constantly looking ahead.

“Chile and Haiti should have taught us something,” Fugate said. “We don’t get to pick the next disaster, and an earthquake could strike at any time. Any other event that could occur, we have to be ready all the time.”

The start of the hurricane season on June 1 “gives us a reminder to get people ready for something.”

“At FEMA, we have to be ready 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Fugate said. “And I don’t get the luxury of waiting for a forecast season. I have to be ready to go.

“So we keep adjusting, even with Tennessee and others – we have a lot of disasters going – we keep re-setting our time and looking at where we’re at, and go, right now, if something happened, what are we ready to do, and what do we have to do to be prepared?”