(Bloomberg) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency is facing a financial crisis after Congress failed to sufficiently replenish storm aid in a government funding bill, even as expensive disasters pile up.
A short-term bill that was signed into law Thursday will provide the Disaster Relief Fund, which pays for the agency’s response and recovery activity, with enough money to likely last through January, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said. Once that money runs out, the agency will likely have to go back to immediate needs funding, or only what it deems essential life-sustaining efforts, Criswell said during a White House briefing Thursday.
“We are seeing an increase,” Criswell said, “and we’re seeing a strain on our staff, with more of them deployed for longer periods of time, helping to support these communities recover.”
FEMA is projecting a nearly $3 billion deficit by February and a $22.6 billion deficit by September next year, partly because of a backlog of deferred payouts to storm ravaged communities. An extra $10 billion for the agency sought by lawmakers was not included in Thursday’s bill, which will last through Dec. 20.
The projection, from earlier this month, comes as the US was hit with Hurricane Helene, which slammed into the Western Coast of Florida as a Category 4, knocking out power to millions. It is expected to cost as much as $15 billion in damages and economic loss, adding to 20 weather and climate disasters costing over $1 billion the US has seen through September totaling more than $53 billion in damages, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The government funding bill “is a temporary fix,” Erin J. Greten, who formerly served as FEMA’s associate chief counsel, said in an email. “It is not nearly enough to meet the nation’s disaster costs for the next year. The response to and recovery from Hurricane Helene will also be costly, as will the inevitable storms and other events to come.”
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