US Federal Emergency Management Agency funds run short - Vermont lawmakers lobby for emergency funding for flood damaged state

It’s been horrible here. I’m fortunate to live in a town that wasn’t hit hard, and my house is at the top of a hill away from the river and lake, but the rain has been insane — non stop, day after day after day.

Driving around the state I see so many houses gutted with all of their possessions, cabinets, and drywall in dumpsters in front of the house. Downtown Montpelier (the capital) is completely gutted.

The devastation is vast.

I was curious about FEMA's spending so looked up this Congressional Budget Office report from November 2020 (with updates).

[FEMA's spending] has been driven less by the number of disasters declared and more by the size and severity of individual disasters. Although Presidents have made more than 1,700 declarations of major disasters over the past 30 years, a small number of those disasters account for a disproportionate share of total spending.² For example, of the more than 30 major hurricanes since 1992 that resulted in spending for disaster relief, a handful were responsible for nearly one-third of all spending: Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma (in 2005) accounted for 18 percent; Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria (in 2017) accounted for 9 percent; and Hurricane Sandy (in 2012) accounted for 5 percent. By themselves, through 2021, the 2005 hurricanes have resulted in $64 billion in spending.

It goes on to say...

For federal disaster spending over the past three decades, 2005 marked an inflection point. Over the 1992–2004 period (before Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma), DRF spending averaged about $5 billion annually. Since 2005, though, spending has risen to an average of $16.5 billion annually, spurred by a handful of particularly severe events (including those three hurricanes and the pandemic) and the larger appropriations provided in response.

FEMA gets a lot of money apportioned to it in response to disasters as they happen, so it doesn't sound terribly unusual that they're running short on funds since they've been disbursing money and support to a number of disasters this past fiscal year. However, in light of previous spending it sounds like FEMA wasn't provided with nearly enough funding upfront.

It sounds like the immediate problem is really that Congress is recessed until September (and there might be some political bickering and things on top of that) rather than the problem being that FEMA somehow won't get the funding it needs. Maybe, instead of having their drawers full of police state fanfiction legislation, Congresspeople could have some form of "interim disaster relief funding bill" sitting around that they've already read through (and by "they" I mean their staffers, because who else reads) and can be voted on without a bunch of time-wasting antics.