Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has insisted the Federal Emergency Management Agency has sufficient resources to respond to Hurricane Milton following reports of staff shortages.
Mayorkas made the comment on Monday during an appearance on MSNBC‘s Inside With Jen Psaki after The New York Times reported that less than 10 percent of FEMA staff members were available to respond to any emergencies.
On Monday, Hurricane Milton strengthened to a Category 5 storm, with the National Hurricane Center warning it “has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida.” The hurricane is expected to make landfall along Florida’s western coast on Wednesday, with the Tampa Bay area facing a storm surge of up to 15 feet.
During his MSNBC interview, Mayorkas was asked about a New York Times article published on Monday that said 9 percent of FEMA staff members, or 1,217 people, were available to deal with Milton or any other natural disaster. The newspaper cited the agency’s daily operations briefing for this figure, though a spokesperson insisted, “FEMA is built for this.”
Mayorkas expressed confidence in FEMA’s preparations, telling Psaki: “Everybody should rest confident that FEMA has the resources. We already have 900 personnel deployed, pre-positioned, in Florida. People who are responding to Hurricane Helene, people who were responding previously to Hurricanes Idalia and Debby. We are there.
“We have search and rescue teams. The Army Corps of Engineers are there. We are ready. We have the personnel. FEMA likes to say, ‘It is FEMA-flexible.’ We can respond to multiple events at a single time.”
Newsweek contacted the FEMA press office for comment on Tuesday via email outside regular office hours.
Residents boarding up a seashell store ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected landfall this week in Treasure Island, Florida, on October 7. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told MSNBC that FEMA has enough resources to respond to the storm.
BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/GETTY
Last week, Mayorkas warned FEMA did not have sufficient funds for the remaining 2024 hurricane season. He said: “We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.”
As part of a stopgap spending bill, Congress replenished FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund shortly before Hurricane Helene crashed into the southeastern United States in late September, despite the opposition of some Republicans. However, billions that had been requested in supplemental disaster funding were excluded.
President Joe Biden wrote to congressional leaders on Friday urging them to provide additional funding. He said: “While FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund has the resources it requires right now to meet immediate needs, the fund does face a shortfall at the end of the year.
“Without additional funding, FEMA would be required to forego longer-term recovery activities in favor of meeting urgent needs. The Congress should provide FEMA additional resources to avoid forcing that kind of unnecessary trade-off and to give the communities we serve the certainty of knowing that help will be ongoing, both for the short- and long-term.”
During his MSNBC interview, Mayorkas also said disinformation in response to natural disasters was discouraging people affected from applying for relief funding.
He told Psaki: “You and I both remember a time when an extreme weather event, a natural disaster, actually brought people together. Now, unfortunately—tragically, quite frankly—it is politicized. And what happens is, the people who are victimized by the natural disaster are the ones who will suffer.
“It sows distrust in their government, and therefore they don’t seek the help that they truly need. We have funds to put in their pockets to be able to help them address immediate needs. These individuals are not seeking that relief because of the disinformation, the intentionally false information, they are receiving.”
According to Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist, Hurricane Milton could be “a historic, once-in-a-lifetime storm for Floridians.” The storm follows Hurricane Helene, which crashed into Florida on September 26 as a Category 4 storm and resulted in at least 225 deaths across multiple states due to powerful winds and catastrophic flooding.
