From CNN's Ella Nilsen
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said her agency will need more funding from Congress by December or January – otherwise FEMA will only be able to respond to immediate disasters and have to temporarily suspend its longer-term recovery efforts.
Criswell reiterated the agency currently has enough funding to respond to both hurricanes Helene and Milton and be able to provide longer-term recovery assistance to disaster survivors around the country hit by previous storms and wildfires.
“I’m not going to be able to support those recoveries for long without a supplemental and we anticipate needing additional funding in the December, January timeframe,” Criswell said. She added the agency currently has a little over $20 billion to spend and will assess how much supplemental funding it will need to ask Congress for by this winter.
FEMA currently has over 1,000 incident management staff – or about 9% of its total personnel – deployed to Florida for Milton, Criswell said. More FEMA staff will be deployed before the hurricane hits.
There are around 7,500 personnel from across the entire federal government – 4,000 of which are FEMA staff – deployed around the country to assist with disasters, with many still concentrated in North Carolina to assist with Helene recovery.
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