FEMA's Big Spend: A Look at Rapid Disaster Funding

FEMA has been burning through its disaster funds at a lightning pace. In just over a week, they spent about $9 billion of their recently allocated $20 billion. Why the rush? The agency is dealing with back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton, plus a whole list of other disasters like wildfires, floods, and tornadoes that happened earlier this year. FEMA's boss, Deanne Criswell, explained that they had to pause some long-term recovery projects because they ran out of money. But once they got more funds, they started paying back states and communities that were hit hard by these disasters. Most of the $9 billion went to reimbursing these places, with the rest going towards helping with Helene and Milton. So, why spend so much? This year has been a wild ride for disasters in the US. We've seen around 23 or 24 major disasters that cost a billion dollars or more. That includes hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and even nasty thunderstorms. FEMA is juggling a lot, and it's not just hurricanes. They're dealing with wildfires out West, flooding up North, and a bunch of tough storms that hit Texas and other states. Criswell said it's the most disasters she's seen FEMA handle at once. Will FEMA need more money? That's a good question. It depends on how much damage these disasters cause. Criswell said they might ask Congress for more cash sooner than they thought. But Congress won't be back until after the November election, so we'll have to wait and see. Are these costly disasters happening more often? Sadly, yes. Last year, we had a record 28 disasters that cost at least a billion dollars. Over the past five years, we've had over 100 such disasters. Adam Smith, a climatologist with NOAA, said we used to have about 3 months between these big disasters, but now it's more like every 3 weeks. He thinks climate change is making these events more frequent and intense.