FEMA has ‘funds to absolutely get through the response for this hurricane, as well as the continued response for Hurricane Helene,’ she said.
The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said the agency has enough resources to deal with Hurricane Milton, expected to slam into Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday, as well as dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
However, FEMA may not have enough money to deal with any more crises, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told Fox News on Monday evening.
“We don’t have enough money to continue throughout the rest of the year,” she said, adding that her agency has been “able to anticipate last year, this year, and even going into next year, that we are not going to have enough to pay all of the recovery bills.”
Criswell reiterated that FEMA does “have enough funds to absolutely get through the response for this hurricane, as well as the continued response for Hurricane Helene.”
“I have the full authorization to spend against the president’s fiscal year ‘25 budget,” she said. “And we will continue to meet the needs of the individuals that are impacted by these storms.
“But we don’t have enough money to continue throughout the rest of the year. And we went into immediate needs funding earlier in the year to make sure we can do just what we’ve been doing through Helene, as well as now the preparations for Milton.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose department oversees FEMA, said this week that the agency will be able to respond to both Helene and Milton.
The secretary was asked by MSNBC pundit and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday to respond to a report claiming that FEMA is facing a staffing shortage ahead of the hurricane.
Mayorkas asserted that FEMA can handle several crises at the same time, saying, “We have the personnel” and that “FEMA likes to say it is FEMA flexible. We can respond to multiple events at a single time.
“And everybody should rest confident that FEMA has the resources.
