What Is the Truth About the FEMA Response in Hurricane Helene?

Hurricane Helene hit the states in southeastern part of the United States last Thursday, and FEMA took more than a week to show up in the area. FEMA told Congress last month that there was only $4 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund and that the organization could have a shortfall of $6 billion by the end of 2024.

As time goes by, more information comes out about FEMA and its operations. James Varney wrote the following in his article published at The Daily Signal. 

While FEMA is expected to ask Congress for new money, budget experts note a surprising fact: FEMA is currently sitting on untapped reserves appropriated for past disasters stretching back decades.

An August report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General noted that in 2022, FEMA “estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open.”

Drilling down on that data, the OIG found that $8.3 billion of that total was for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier.

Such developments are part of a larger pattern in which FEMA failed to close out specific grant programs “within a certain timeframe, known as the period of performance (POP),” according to the IG report. Those projects now represent “billions in unliquidated appropriations that could potentially be returned to the [Disaster Relief Fund].”

These “unliquidated obligations” reflect the complex federal budgeting processes. Safeguards are important so that FEMA funding doesn’t become a slush fund that the agency can spend however it chooses, budget experts said, but the inability to tap unspent appropriations from long-ago crises complicates the agency’s ability to respond to immediate disasters….

FEMA’s lackluster performance in helping the people in the eastern part of North Carolina is questionable. Would the organization be so slow if the people who were affected were African Americans? Did they drag their feet because the self-proclaimed hillbillies are white and mostly conservatives? I hope not, but the question does arise.

I hope that the authorities in charge of voting in each of the affected are making sure that all eligible voters have the opportunity to cast their votes during the presidential election.