Emergency and utilities crews are stretched thin. It’s a reminder how fragile our society is when a multi-state disaster occurs.
It’s good that utilities crews didn’t set up in the mountains where it could have been real bad.
**** 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Tropical Storm Rafael (60 mph) | Heading to the Gulf ****
- Thread starter 4 Dimensional
- Start date
Emergency and utilities crews are stretched thin. It’s a reminder how fragile our society is when a multi-state disaster occurs.
It’s good that utilities crews didn’t set up in the mountains where it could have been real bad.
Man y’all folks out in White Oak or something?
swamp country..............Waycross, Ga. (Ware Co.)
the city is majority black.....but cacs populate the rural county areas.
largest county in the state of GA.
Oh I know about that place…
So I went to Valdosta for a big rim race event at the track. I left Kingsland and went 95 to I10 then up in I75 to Valdosta…
After the race was over, I saw it was shorter thru Cecil… was like 25mins shorter, man this was at like 11pm straight back roads…
Kinfolk, I was soooo mad at myself. This was dark roads with nothing on them…. When I got to waycross, I was so fucking happy to see a McDonalds. Then a ninjas was running around in a box….lmao
Let’s just say I ain’t doing that shit again…
I was like mannn if something happens, that shit on me…
“Man at some point I missed a turn and the gps rerouted me thru a field
“
People thought that western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee was be a safe Haven from climate change…..No, you are not safe from climate change on this earth. You just hope not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some of these areas are going to be a little tough to get at because (A) some of the towns is no longer there and (B) some of the towns have no in and no way out. Climate scientist from the 80s and 90s was stating that this was going to happen. A lot of them thought this was going to happen around 2050 or 2100 but as I keep telling you guys things is accelerating very quickly.
Man hikes 18 kilometres, 670 metres high to reach his parents in North Carolina
It had been 48 hours since the winds and rains from Hurricane Helene ripped through western North Carolina and Sam Perkins still had not heard from his parents.www.ctvnews.ca
We don't do that metric system down here boss man
Here is the last 7-day rain distribution for NC and surrounding states. Helene dropped +20 inches in some parts.
Here is a wind distribution map of Helene moving through GA, SC, and NC. In the NC mountains, some of the wind reached over 80 and 90 mph.
Death toll up to 132
www.yahoo.com
Hurricane Helene by the numbers: Catastrophic destruction covers 400 miles
After making landfall in Florida's Big Bend region Thursday night as a major Category 4 hurricane, Helene has caused catastrophic storm surge, wind damage and inland flooding across a wide swath of the South. Helene was the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Big Bend region on record...
This is some crazy numbers
You basically had a strong hurricane on land. I keep saying this hurricane was a huge wake up call with our climate.Here is a wind distribution map of Helene moving through GA, SC, and NC. In the NC mountains, some of the wind reached over 80 and 90 mph.
USPS temporarily suspends services at several Georgia locations
All postal retail and delivery operations for dozens of USPS facilities across Georgia have been temporarily suspended until further notice due to Hurricane Helene's impact.
Up to 600 missing and or unaccounted for.
Starting to feel like Katrina 2.0
A lot of those people got swept away. I hate to say it, but I seen some of the video that water was moving tractor trailers like toys so I know what it did the human beings. Again, a lot of white people got a huge wake up. Call about climate change. Rest in peace to the decease.
Repubs are ripping the administration in charge and trying to shame Biden into showing up almost a week late
Even a lot of Republicans are coming out and saying that Biden been doing his shit to assist them. I don’t like this motherfucker, but at least he is telling the truth
Last edited:
next week breddren
Next time just speak American.
Death toll triples in Asheville area after Hurricane Helene guts North Carolina: ‘There were bodies in the trees’
“There were bodies in trees. They were finding bodies under rubble,” said Alyssa Hudson, whose home of Black Mountain — a village of 8,400 people about 12 miles from Asheville — was all but destroyed.
By Jared Downing
Sep. 30, 2024
nypost.com
“There were bodies in trees. They were finding bodies under rubble,” said Alyssa Hudson, whose home of Black Mountain — a village of 8,400 people about 12 miles from Asheville — was all but destroyed.
By Jared Downing
Sep. 30, 2024
Death toll triples in Asheville area after Hurricane Helene guts North Carolina: ‘There were bodies in the trees’
“It’s like a f–king living hell that we just can’t wake up from,” one local said.
nypost.com
Hurricane Helene scrambles politics in 3 battleground states
BY ALEXANDER BOLTON
10/01/24
Hurricane Helene scrambles politics in 3 battleground states
The 500-milelong path of destruction cut by Hurricane Helene has scrambled the politics of three battleground states that could determine control of the White House and Senate: North Carolina, Geor…
thehill.com
The 500-milelong path of destruction cut by Hurricane Helene has scrambled the politics of three battleground states that could determine control of the White House and Senate: North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
Both former President Trump and Vice President Harris abruptly changed their campaign plans to refocus their attention on states hit hard by a storm that spanned 350 miles, with winds reaching 140 miles per hour, that has left more than 100 confirmed deaths so far.
The storm’s damage has drawn early comparisons to Katrina, the hurricane that killed more than 1,000 people in New Orleans and surrounding Louisiana in 2005 and became an albatross for then-President George W. Bush.
In races that could be decided by a few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes, any response that could be perceived as uncaring, tone-deaf or incompetent could be devastating.
“The burden is on President Biden’s shoulders, because his reputation now with many voters is that he’s only marginally up to the job. Anything that seems a bit slow, even if it’s not slow … will have some political fallout for him and those associated with him. So I think the burden is clearly on the shoulder of the Democrats,” said Stephen Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
“There’s a tendency to just blame everyone in power if things don’t go as people expect them to,” he added. “I do think that the administration and the Harris campaign are hypersensitive about how things went with Katrina, and they’ll do everything possible to be visible and active in their response.”
Biden says he’ll visit Western North Carolina, which was hardest hit by the storm, later this week and announced that Congress will need to pass a supplemental funding bill to replenish disaster relief accounts, which lawmakers failed to do before leaving town last week.
Harris, meanwhile, cut short a campaign trip in Nevada on Monday to fly back to Washington and plans to visit the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) headquarters to get updates on the federal disaster response.
The federal government’s response has already become a political football, with Trump claiming during a visit to Valdosta, Ga., that Gov. Brian Kemp (R) couldn’t get in touch with Biden, though Kemp had told reporters earlier Monday that he had already spoken to the president.
The White House issued a state-of-emergency declaration for Georgia, at Kemp’s request, shortly before making landfall.
“He has been calling the president, but has not been able to get him,” Trump said of Kemp during a press conference.
But that claim was knocked down by Kemp, who said he spoke to Biden on Sunday evening. The president asked him, “Hey, what do you need?” Kemp said.
Looming over the political jockeying are the memories of the Bush administration’s botched response to Katrina, which was epitomized by the president’s tin-eared praise of then-FEMA Director Michael D. Brown amid a disorganized federal relief effort.
“What really hurt George Bush in 2005 as we all remember can be put down to one phrase: ‘Heck of a job, Brownie,’” said Steven Greene, a political science professor at North Carolina State University, which is not in the part of the state that was significantly hit.
“I’m not even sure how bad or not-bad the government response was, but we very quickly developed a narrative that the Bush administration had bungled it,” he said.
“They want to not screw up. They want to show they are taking this sufficiently seriously and avoid any ‘Good job, Brownie’ moments,” Greene said of Biden and Harris.
Before Bush suffered the political fallout from Katrina that hung over his second term, his father, President George H.W. Bush, was harshly criticized for responding too slowly to Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm, which slammed into Florida in August of 1992.
Now, Republicans are looking to put Biden and Harris on the defensive, questioning their minute-by-minute movements over the weekend.
“Democrats invented hurricane politics and now Democrats might get burned by it. You’ve got millions without power, you’ve got tens of thousands who’ve lost everything. On the ground, that’s certainly going to weigh on the election results, particularly when you’re talking about Georgia, North Carolina that will be decided by tens of thousands of votes,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist and veteran of presidential campaigns.
Political experts and strategists note that most of government response will be handled by the governors: two Republicans and one Democrat….
And the good news for Biden and Harris is that all three of them are experienced hands: North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), who was on the shortlist to be Harris’s running mate; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who challenged Trump for the GOP nomination; and Kemp, whom some Republicans wanted to run for president.
All three leaders have been on top of the federal response and in close coordination with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who’s on the ground in North Carolina.
On a more granular level, strategists are fretting over how the displacement of thousands of voters — both in the Republican-dominated areas of Western Florida, the Florida panhandle and rural Western North Carolina, as well as the Democratic-leaning North Carolina towns of Asheville and Boone in North Carolina — will impact voter turnout.
Christopher Dean, a North Carolina-based political consultant, noted that in-person early voting in his state begins Oct. 17.
“It’s all about turnout and how this is going to affect turnout,” he said, pointing out there are many Democratic voters in Asheville and Boone, the home of Appalachian State University. But he pointed out that surrounding rural areas are strongly Republican.
“Gov. Cooper has done an excellent job of staying on top of it,” he said. “Cooper’s office is always in local news, always talking more, so they’re breaking through more than the federal government.”
On Monday, Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R), who’s in a tough race with former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D), went on offense by demanding Democrats reconvene the Senate to pass disaster relief.
He said Congress should act as soon as FEMA and the Small Business Administration tally up how much federal disaster relief is needed in Florida and other ravaged communities.
“I am today urging Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to immediately reconvene the U.S. Senate when those assessments are completed so that we can pass the clean supplemental disaster funding bill and other disaster relief legislation,” he said.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee announced last week it would launch a multimillion-dollar TV advertising campaign in Florida in hopes of defeating Scott in a race where abortion politics are looming prominently. Democrats increasingly think that beating Scott in Florida or Sen. Ted Cruz (R) in Texas may be the key to keeping their Senate majority given the tough road to reelection faced by Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D).
Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) responded later in the day by calling for emergency assistance for farmers and ranchers throughout the Southeast.
“I’m focused on ensuring that these farmers and ranchers get the emergency assistance they need to get back on their feet as soon as possible,” she said in a statement.
Oh cash is king you say.. like I tell everyone all you need is 1 lil glitch and all the card/ phone dependent people who only pay through those things would be assed out.. here’s another example on why cash is king
Yeah bruh,
Luckily we only had Tornado Watches, but no Warnings came up for our area. I was a lil shook and almost had a breakdown when my daughter started crying....I couldn't see shit outside! I thought about going to a shelter but it was too late!! We were in it!!
But again, we were lucky. I heard Valdosta was GONE! Hazelhurst got fucked up. Augusta got fucked up too. I haven't heard much about Tallahassee but I think they got really fucked up too.
Thanks bruh, we're all okay. But now we're preparing for Joyce PLUS this Port Strike. My family is in the car now waiting on some food from this Jamaican Food Truck and we are on the way to Walmart AGAIN!! I just paid 50 for another gas can for this generator. Been buying gas all week. Shit is a TRIP!
Lawmakers stunned as disaster funds left out of stopgap bill
Congress approved a funding patch Wednesday without supplemental disaster money, even as Hurricane Helene bears down on Florida.
By Andres Picon
09/26/2024
www.eenews.net
A pair of destructive hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, an explosion of wildfires across the West and urgent pleas from Democrats and the White House this month were not enough to persuade Congress to secure new funding for disaster victims.
The House and Senate kicked off a six-week preelection recess Wednesday evening after passing a government funding extension that left out billions of dollars in requested supplemental disaster funding — even as Hurricane Helene, expected to grow into a Category 3 storm by Thursday evening, careened toward the Florida Panhandle.
The bipartisan continuing resolution passed the House on Wednesday on a 341-82 vote and hours later passed the Senate on a 78-18 vote. When President Joe Biden signs it, it will keep federal agencies open through Dec. 20, providing funding extensions for a range of federal programs, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But some lawmakers from disaster-prone states — on both sides of the aisle — were aghast this week at the lack of additional dollars for FEMA’s already depleted disaster relief fund and other federal disaster programs. Many of them were incensed that the typically bipartisan priority had fallen victim to partisan squabbles at such a dire time.
Indeed, as the House and Senate’s top four leaders met last weekend to negotiate a deal to keep the government funded, they were forced to acquiesce to the demands of Congress’ most conservative fiscal hawks, whose votes were thought to be pivotal for passage. They quietly stripped the CR of almost all supplemental funding, including for FEMA, according to multiple House appropriators.
The closed-door negotiations left many of Congress’ biggest disaster aid advocates surprised and disappointed, and even top appropriators with jurisdiction over disaster funding said they were blindsided.
“I would have thought that if you were going to do something, disaster funding would’ve been one of the starting points. I have no idea how they got to that,” Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), chair of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, which funds FEMA, told POLITICO’s E&E News.
“They didn’t call me in and ask me for any advice,” he said. “Can you believe that?”
The funding omission was made all the more striking by the fact that lawmakers were leaving Washington two days ahead of schedule, in part because of the hurricane.
And some members, like Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who has resisted efforts to preemptively appropriate disaster dollars, voted against the CR.
“The right-wingers here, the MAGA crowd, even after disasters happen, they have opposed disaster aid for communities in need,” said a frustrated Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.).
“I’m fearful of it because we’ve lived through it a number of times,” she added. “Even members from Florida after a disaster have opposed initial aid going in, and it’s not the way to have a government function, or FEMA function. It’s not right.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) skipped the vote to be in Florida ahead of Helene’s landfall but supports new funding to refill FEMA’s disaster fund.
Disaster funds in crisis
Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday.
FEMA’s disaster relief fund is staring down a nearly $2 billion deficit at the end of the month, and the agency has been in “immediate-needs” mode for weeks, having to hold back billions of dollars that could go to rebuilding projects in order to support more urgent life-saving work.
The CR approved Wednesday would extend FEMA’s current funding level through Dec. 20, and would allow the agency to more quickly draw from that funding to meet current needs. But the agency’s latest monthly report projects that money from the CR will last only through January and that the fund will still face a $3 billion deficit by February.
Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, one of Congress’ biggest boosters of disaster aid, said FEMA has a backlog of roughly $8 billion that it has been unable to dole out to states since early August.
The CR will allow FEMA to begin reimbursing states for money they have spent to rebuild during that time, he said, but that will cut into next year’s disaster response efforts.
“This problem, we’re gonna have to fix it again in December, because right now we’re basically robbing Peter to pay Paul by taking money from fiscal year ’25 to solve fiscal year ’24,” he said.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) outside the Capitol.
Other federal disaster programs like the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s disaster block grant program known as CDBG-DR, the Small Business Administration’s disaster loans program and the Federal Highway Administration’s disaster recovery account are all in need of help. The CR that Congress approved Wednesday does not provide any of them with any new money.
The White House backed the bipartisan stopgap this week but blasted the omission of supplemental funding for disaster relief — especially for the SBA’s disaster loans program, which it said would essentially cease to function this fall.
“I am concerned that communities will suffer because the arc of their recovery will drag out longer because the money isn’t there,” said Andy Winkler, who leads the Bipartisan Policy Center’s task force on disaster response reform.
“There are needs outstanding from last year and it becomes really difficult,” he said. Federal disaster programs “have no money in the bank, essentially, to help people in supporting these long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts.”
Seeking to avoid defections on the votes, congressional leaders also decided not to include an authorization for a 100 percent federal cost share for the rebuilding of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed earlier this year, disappointing members of the Maryland delegation.
Congress similarly left out an extension of federal pipeline safety programs, which are due to expire at the end of the month; a program to compensate victims of nuclear radiation exposure, which lapsed in June; and a program to protect chemical facilities from terrorist attacks, which expired more than a year ago. It remains unclear how those programs will be reauthorized.
The CR does extend the National Flood Insurance Program.
Aid removed ‘in good faith’
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) this week.
In what felt like a gut punch to Congress’ biggest disaster aid backers, congressional leaders opted to remove a $10 billion supplemental infusion for FEMA that House conservatives had added to their opening bid to extend government funding.
The previous iteration of the CR, which the House defeated last week, included that sum — half of what the White House requested — to help replenish the agency’s disaster fund as Hurricane Francine was barreling toward Louisiana, the home state of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Some Democrats from states affected by recent disasters complained that it was not enough and called for funding for the other disaster programs, too. Many Republicans, trying to unite behind the conservative proposal, panned the looming disaster funding cliff, and the rider was ultimately removed over the weekend.
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) both expressed disappointment that the supplemental funding had been struck — especially since in the end, Congress didn’t need the votes of conservatives opposed to new disaster funding for passage.
Yet amid the finger-pointing this week, the top House appropriators appeared to have accepted the fact that removing the funding was a necessary part of the negotiations.
“It was done in good faith,” Cole said. “The sense was let’s keep it as clean as we can; that maximizes the votes on the floor. I don’t regret the decision. To me, disaster funding should not be a partisan issue ever, but sometimes it is.”
He noted that Democrats “would have liked some additional things in the bill they didn’t insist on.”
Asked for her thoughts on the disaster funding gap, DeLauro said she wished funding had been included, “but we needed to negotiate this, and we did.”
“We got the three months, there’s no ‘SAVE Act,’ no across-the-board cuts,” she said, referring to a conservative bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote. “Some things I would have been happier if they were there, but there we go.”
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a top Senate appropriator, has been pushing for wildfire and other disaster funding.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), chair of the Senate Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, gave an impassioned floor speech Wednesday asking his colleagues not to abandon disaster aid.
He was upset about the lack of new funding in the CR on Wednesday and indicated that while there is still time to approve some later this year, his patience is wearing thin. He suggested he could block action on a year-end legislation if it does not include disaster relief.
“For a short-term spending vehicle, I’m not gonna get in the way of it,” he said before Wednesday’s vote. “But I will not be cooperative if history repeats itself.”
‘We’re not done’
Already, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were beginning to turn their attention to the post-election lame duck session, eyeing a possible supplemental funding package to take care of the disaster funding shortfall before the end of the year.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said regardless of the vehicle, “it is going to have to be a red-alert priority in December.”
But even that Plan B is ambitious. Congress will be scrambling to finish work on fiscal 2025 appropriations, the annual defense policy bill and the farm bill, and there’s no guarantee that lawmakers will be able to find the time — let alone the political will — to make it happen.
Part of the resistance comes from some conservative lawmakers who say they prefer to wait until after disasters occur to pass new disaster funding so that they can have a better picture of the costs.
Most Democrats and emergency management experts off Capitol Hill say that approach results in communities receiving too little funding, often months or years late. Maui, for example, still has not received HUD funding to rebuild homes destroyed by the wildfires because Congress has not appropriated it.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told reporters Wednesday that action to refill federal disaster coffers was long overdue.
“We’re gonna continue to have more potential natural disasters between now and December or into next year,” he said. “Even this may not be enough, but it should have been done months ago.”
“We’re not done,” he said about the disaster funding fight.
Congress approved a funding patch Wednesday without supplemental disaster money, even as Hurricane Helene bears down on Florida.
By Andres Picon
09/26/2024
Lawmakers stunned as disaster funds left out of stopgap bill
Congress approved a funding patch Wednesday without supplemental disaster money, even as Hurricane Helene bears down on Florida.
www.eenews.net
A pair of destructive hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, an explosion of wildfires across the West and urgent pleas from Democrats and the White House this month were not enough to persuade Congress to secure new funding for disaster victims.
The House and Senate kicked off a six-week preelection recess Wednesday evening after passing a government funding extension that left out billions of dollars in requested supplemental disaster funding — even as Hurricane Helene, expected to grow into a Category 3 storm by Thursday evening, careened toward the Florida Panhandle.
The bipartisan continuing resolution passed the House on Wednesday on a 341-82 vote and hours later passed the Senate on a 78-18 vote. When President Joe Biden signs it, it will keep federal agencies open through Dec. 20, providing funding extensions for a range of federal programs, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But some lawmakers from disaster-prone states — on both sides of the aisle — were aghast this week at the lack of additional dollars for FEMA’s already depleted disaster relief fund and other federal disaster programs. Many of them were incensed that the typically bipartisan priority had fallen victim to partisan squabbles at such a dire time.
Indeed, as the House and Senate’s top four leaders met last weekend to negotiate a deal to keep the government funded, they were forced to acquiesce to the demands of Congress’ most conservative fiscal hawks, whose votes were thought to be pivotal for passage. They quietly stripped the CR of almost all supplemental funding, including for FEMA, according to multiple House appropriators.
The closed-door negotiations left many of Congress’ biggest disaster aid advocates surprised and disappointed, and even top appropriators with jurisdiction over disaster funding said they were blindsided.
“I would have thought that if you were going to do something, disaster funding would’ve been one of the starting points. I have no idea how they got to that,” Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), chair of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, which funds FEMA, told POLITICO’s E&E News.
“They didn’t call me in and ask me for any advice,” he said. “Can you believe that?”
The funding omission was made all the more striking by the fact that lawmakers were leaving Washington two days ahead of schedule, in part because of the hurricane.
And some members, like Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who has resisted efforts to preemptively appropriate disaster dollars, voted against the CR.
“The right-wingers here, the MAGA crowd, even after disasters happen, they have opposed disaster aid for communities in need,” said a frustrated Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.).
“I’m fearful of it because we’ve lived through it a number of times,” she added. “Even members from Florida after a disaster have opposed initial aid going in, and it’s not the way to have a government function, or FEMA function. It’s not right.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) skipped the vote to be in Florida ahead of Helene’s landfall but supports new funding to refill FEMA’s disaster fund.
Disaster funds in crisis
Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday.
FEMA’s disaster relief fund is staring down a nearly $2 billion deficit at the end of the month, and the agency has been in “immediate-needs” mode for weeks, having to hold back billions of dollars that could go to rebuilding projects in order to support more urgent life-saving work.
The CR approved Wednesday would extend FEMA’s current funding level through Dec. 20, and would allow the agency to more quickly draw from that funding to meet current needs. But the agency’s latest monthly report projects that money from the CR will last only through January and that the fund will still face a $3 billion deficit by February.
Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, one of Congress’ biggest boosters of disaster aid, said FEMA has a backlog of roughly $8 billion that it has been unable to dole out to states since early August.
The CR will allow FEMA to begin reimbursing states for money they have spent to rebuild during that time, he said, but that will cut into next year’s disaster response efforts.
“This problem, we’re gonna have to fix it again in December, because right now we’re basically robbing Peter to pay Paul by taking money from fiscal year ’25 to solve fiscal year ’24,” he said.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) outside the Capitol.
Other federal disaster programs like the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s disaster block grant program known as CDBG-DR, the Small Business Administration’s disaster loans program and the Federal Highway Administration’s disaster recovery account are all in need of help. The CR that Congress approved Wednesday does not provide any of them with any new money.
The White House backed the bipartisan stopgap this week but blasted the omission of supplemental funding for disaster relief — especially for the SBA’s disaster loans program, which it said would essentially cease to function this fall.
“I am concerned that communities will suffer because the arc of their recovery will drag out longer because the money isn’t there,” said Andy Winkler, who leads the Bipartisan Policy Center’s task force on disaster response reform.
“There are needs outstanding from last year and it becomes really difficult,” he said. Federal disaster programs “have no money in the bank, essentially, to help people in supporting these long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts.”
Seeking to avoid defections on the votes, congressional leaders also decided not to include an authorization for a 100 percent federal cost share for the rebuilding of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed earlier this year, disappointing members of the Maryland delegation.
Congress similarly left out an extension of federal pipeline safety programs, which are due to expire at the end of the month; a program to compensate victims of nuclear radiation exposure, which lapsed in June; and a program to protect chemical facilities from terrorist attacks, which expired more than a year ago. It remains unclear how those programs will be reauthorized.
The CR does extend the National Flood Insurance Program.
Aid removed ‘in good faith’
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) this week.
In what felt like a gut punch to Congress’ biggest disaster aid backers, congressional leaders opted to remove a $10 billion supplemental infusion for FEMA that House conservatives had added to their opening bid to extend government funding.
The previous iteration of the CR, which the House defeated last week, included that sum — half of what the White House requested — to help replenish the agency’s disaster fund as Hurricane Francine was barreling toward Louisiana, the home state of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Some Democrats from states affected by recent disasters complained that it was not enough and called for funding for the other disaster programs, too. Many Republicans, trying to unite behind the conservative proposal, panned the looming disaster funding cliff, and the rider was ultimately removed over the weekend.
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) both expressed disappointment that the supplemental funding had been struck — especially since in the end, Congress didn’t need the votes of conservatives opposed to new disaster funding for passage.
Yet amid the finger-pointing this week, the top House appropriators appeared to have accepted the fact that removing the funding was a necessary part of the negotiations.
“It was done in good faith,” Cole said. “The sense was let’s keep it as clean as we can; that maximizes the votes on the floor. I don’t regret the decision. To me, disaster funding should not be a partisan issue ever, but sometimes it is.”
He noted that Democrats “would have liked some additional things in the bill they didn’t insist on.”
Asked for her thoughts on the disaster funding gap, DeLauro said she wished funding had been included, “but we needed to negotiate this, and we did.”
“We got the three months, there’s no ‘SAVE Act,’ no across-the-board cuts,” she said, referring to a conservative bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote. “Some things I would have been happier if they were there, but there we go.”
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a top Senate appropriator, has been pushing for wildfire and other disaster funding.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), chair of the Senate Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, gave an impassioned floor speech Wednesday asking his colleagues not to abandon disaster aid.
He was upset about the lack of new funding in the CR on Wednesday and indicated that while there is still time to approve some later this year, his patience is wearing thin. He suggested he could block action on a year-end legislation if it does not include disaster relief.
“For a short-term spending vehicle, I’m not gonna get in the way of it,” he said before Wednesday’s vote. “But I will not be cooperative if history repeats itself.”
‘We’re not done’
Already, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were beginning to turn their attention to the post-election lame duck session, eyeing a possible supplemental funding package to take care of the disaster funding shortfall before the end of the year.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said regardless of the vehicle, “it is going to have to be a red-alert priority in December.”
But even that Plan B is ambitious. Congress will be scrambling to finish work on fiscal 2025 appropriations, the annual defense policy bill and the farm bill, and there’s no guarantee that lawmakers will be able to find the time — let alone the political will — to make it happen.
Part of the resistance comes from some conservative lawmakers who say they prefer to wait until after disasters occur to pass new disaster funding so that they can have a better picture of the costs.
Most Democrats and emergency management experts off Capitol Hill say that approach results in communities receiving too little funding, often months or years late. Maui, for example, still has not received HUD funding to rebuild homes destroyed by the wildfires because Congress has not appropriated it.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told reporters Wednesday that action to refill federal disaster coffers was long overdue.
“We’re gonna continue to have more potential natural disasters between now and December or into next year,” he said. “Even this may not be enough, but it should have been done months ago.”
“We’re not done,” he said about the disaster funding fight.
No money for disaster relief but plenty for Israel and Ukraine.Lawmakers stunned as disaster funds left out of stopgap bill
Congress approved a funding patch Wednesday without supplemental disaster money, even as Hurricane Helene bears down on Florida.
By Andres Picon
09/26/2024
Lawmakers stunned as disaster funds left out of stopgap bill
Congress approved a funding patch Wednesday without supplemental disaster money, even as Hurricane Helene bears down on Florida.
A pair of destructive hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, an explosion of wildfires across the West and urgent pleas from Democrats and the White House this month were not enough to persuade Congress to secure new funding for disaster victims.
The House and Senate kicked off a six-week preelection recess Wednesday evening after passing a government funding extension that left out billions of dollars in requested supplemental disaster funding — even as Hurricane Helene, expected to grow into a Category 3 storm by Thursday evening, careened toward the Florida Panhandle.
The bipartisan continuing resolution passed the House on Wednesday on a 341-82 vote and hours later passed the Senate on a 78-18 vote. When President Joe Biden signs it, it will keep federal agencies open through Dec. 20, providing funding extensions for a range of federal programs, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But some lawmakers from disaster-prone states — on both sides of the aisle — were aghast this week at the lack of additional dollars for FEMA’s already depleted disaster relief fund and other federal disaster programs. Many of them were incensed that the typically bipartisan priority had fallen victim to partisan squabbles at such a dire time.
Indeed, as the House and Senate’s top four leaders met last weekend to negotiate a deal to keep the government funded, they were forced to acquiesce to the demands of Congress’ most conservative fiscal hawks, whose votes were thought to be pivotal for passage. They quietly stripped the CR of almost all supplemental funding, including for FEMA, according to multiple House appropriators.
The closed-door negotiations left many of Congress’ biggest disaster aid advocates surprised and disappointed, and even top appropriators with jurisdiction over disaster funding said they were blindsided.
“I would have thought that if you were going to do something, disaster funding would’ve been one of the starting points. I have no idea how they got to that,” Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), chair of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, which funds FEMA, told POLITICO’s E&E News.
“They didn’t call me in and ask me for any advice,” he said. “Can you believe that?”
The funding omission was made all the more striking by the fact that lawmakers were leaving Washington two days ahead of schedule, in part because of the hurricane.
And some members, like Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who has resisted efforts to preemptively appropriate disaster dollars, voted against the CR.
“The right-wingers here, the MAGA crowd, even after disasters happen, they have opposed disaster aid for communities in need,” said a frustrated Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.).
“I’m fearful of it because we’ve lived through it a number of times,” she added. “Even members from Florida after a disaster have opposed initial aid going in, and it’s not the way to have a government function, or FEMA function. It’s not right.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) skipped the vote to be in Florida ahead of Helene’s landfall but supports new funding to refill FEMA’s disaster fund.
Disaster funds in crisis
Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday.
FEMA’s disaster relief fund is staring down a nearly $2 billion deficit at the end of the month, and the agency has been in “immediate-needs” mode for weeks, having to hold back billions of dollars that could go to rebuilding projects in order to support more urgent life-saving work.
The CR approved Wednesday would extend FEMA’s current funding level through Dec. 20, and would allow the agency to more quickly draw from that funding to meet current needs. But the agency’s latest monthly report projects that money from the CR will last only through January and that the fund will still face a $3 billion deficit by February.
Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, one of Congress’ biggest boosters of disaster aid, said FEMA has a backlog of roughly $8 billion that it has been unable to dole out to states since early August.
The CR will allow FEMA to begin reimbursing states for money they have spent to rebuild during that time, he said, but that will cut into next year’s disaster response efforts.
“This problem, we’re gonna have to fix it again in December, because right now we’re basically robbing Peter to pay Paul by taking money from fiscal year ’25 to solve fiscal year ’24,” he said.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) outside the Capitol.
Other federal disaster programs like the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s disaster block grant program known as CDBG-DR, the Small Business Administration’s disaster loans program and the Federal Highway Administration’s disaster recovery account are all in need of help. The CR that Congress approved Wednesday does not provide any of them with any new money.
The White House backed the bipartisan stopgap this week but blasted the omission of supplemental funding for disaster relief — especially for the SBA’s disaster loans program, which it said would essentially cease to function this fall.
“I am concerned that communities will suffer because the arc of their recovery will drag out longer because the money isn’t there,” said Andy Winkler, who leads the Bipartisan Policy Center’s task force on disaster response reform.
“There are needs outstanding from last year and it becomes really difficult,” he said. Federal disaster programs “have no money in the bank, essentially, to help people in supporting these long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts.”
Seeking to avoid defections on the votes, congressional leaders also decided not to include an authorization for a 100 percent federal cost share for the rebuilding of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed earlier this year, disappointing members of the Maryland delegation.
Congress similarly left out an extension of federal pipeline safety programs, which are due to expire at the end of the month; a program to compensate victims of nuclear radiation exposure, which lapsed in June; and a program to protect chemical facilities from terrorist attacks, which expired more than a year ago. It remains unclear how those programs will be reauthorized.
The CR does extend the National Flood Insurance Program.
Aid removed ‘in good faith’
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) this week.
In what felt like a gut punch to Congress’ biggest disaster aid backers, congressional leaders opted to remove a $10 billion supplemental infusion for FEMA that House conservatives had added to their opening bid to extend government funding.
The previous iteration of the CR, which the House defeated last week, included that sum — half of what the White House requested — to help replenish the agency’s disaster fund as Hurricane Francine was barreling toward Louisiana, the home state of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Some Democrats from states affected by recent disasters complained that it was not enough and called for funding for the other disaster programs, too. Many Republicans, trying to unite behind the conservative proposal, panned the looming disaster funding cliff, and the rider was ultimately removed over the weekend.
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) both expressed disappointment that the supplemental funding had been struck — especially since in the end, Congress didn’t need the votes of conservatives opposed to new disaster funding for passage.
Yet amid the finger-pointing this week, the top House appropriators appeared to have accepted the fact that removing the funding was a necessary part of the negotiations.
“It was done in good faith,” Cole said. “The sense was let’s keep it as clean as we can; that maximizes the votes on the floor. I don’t regret the decision. To me, disaster funding should not be a partisan issue ever, but sometimes it is.”
He noted that Democrats “would have liked some additional things in the bill they didn’t insist on.”
Asked for her thoughts on the disaster funding gap, DeLauro said she wished funding had been included, “but we needed to negotiate this, and we did.”
“We got the three months, there’s no ‘SAVE Act,’ no across-the-board cuts,” she said, referring to a conservative bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote. “Some things I would have been happier if they were there, but there we go.”
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a top Senate appropriator, has been pushing for wildfire and other disaster funding.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), chair of the Senate Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, gave an impassioned floor speech Wednesday asking his colleagues not to abandon disaster aid.
He was upset about the lack of new funding in the CR on Wednesday and indicated that while there is still time to approve some later this year, his patience is wearing thin. He suggested he could block action on a year-end legislation if it does not include disaster relief.
“For a short-term spending vehicle, I’m not gonna get in the way of it,” he said before Wednesday’s vote. “But I will not be cooperative if history repeats itself.”
‘We’re not done’
Already, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were beginning to turn their attention to the post-election lame duck session, eyeing a possible supplemental funding package to take care of the disaster funding shortfall before the end of the year.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said regardless of the vehicle, “it is going to have to be a red-alert priority in December.”
But even that Plan B is ambitious. Congress will be scrambling to finish work on fiscal 2025 appropriations, the annual defense policy bill and the farm bill, and there’s no guarantee that lawmakers will be able to find the time — let alone the political will — to make it happen.
Part of the resistance comes from some conservative lawmakers who say they prefer to wait until after disasters occur to pass new disaster funding so that they can have a better picture of the costs.
Most Democrats and emergency management experts off Capitol Hill say that approach results in communities receiving too little funding, often months or years late. Maui, for example, still has not received HUD funding to rebuild homes destroyed by the wildfires because Congress has not appropriated it.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told reporters Wednesday that action to refill federal disaster coffers was long overdue.
“We’re gonna continue to have more potential natural disasters between now and December or into next year,” he said. “Even this may not be enough, but it should have been done months ago.”
“We’re not done,” he said about the disaster funding fight.
Man I was thinking about this looking at the white couple on their roof
They do this bullshit too often. Same shit was happen in 2004 and 2005 when hurricanes were fuckin up the Gulf coast. America got all money to fund wars but act broke as fuck when disaster strikes.
Things only get done when elites are affected
Anybody trying to weaponize this politically is probably going to lose. I haven't been following the political rhetoric for the past few days, but I see now that Trump is already being his typical asshole self.Hurricane Helene scrambles politics in 3 battleground states
BY ALEXANDER BOLTON
10/01/24
Hurricane Helene scrambles politics in 3 battleground states
The 500-milelong path of destruction cut by Hurricane Helene has scrambled the politics of three battleground states that could determine control of the White House and Senate: North Carolina, Geor…thehill.com
The 500-milelong path of destruction cut by Hurricane Helene has scrambled the politics of three battleground states that could determine control of the White House and Senate: North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
Both former President Trump and Vice President Harris abruptly changed their campaign plans to refocus their attention on states hit hard by a storm that spanned 350 miles, with winds reaching 140 miles per hour, that has left more than 100 confirmed deaths so far.
The storm’s damage has drawn early comparisons to Katrina, the hurricane that killed more than 1,000 people in New Orleans and surrounding Louisiana in 2005 and became an albatross for then-President George W. Bush.
In races that could be decided by a few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes, any response that could be perceived as uncaring, tone-deaf or incompetent could be devastating.
“The burden is on President Biden’s shoulders, because his reputation now with many voters is that he’s only marginally up to the job. Anything that seems a bit slow, even if it’s not slow … will have some political fallout for him and those associated with him. So I think the burden is clearly on the shoulder of the Democrats,” said Stephen Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
“There’s a tendency to just blame everyone in power if things don’t go as people expect them to,” he added. “I do think that the administration and the Harris campaign are hypersensitive about how things went with Katrina, and they’ll do everything possible to be visible and active in their response.”
Biden says he’ll visit Western North Carolina, which was hardest hit by the storm, later this week and announced that Congress will need to pass a supplemental funding bill to replenish disaster relief accounts, which lawmakers failed to do before leaving town last week.
Harris, meanwhile, cut short a campaign trip in Nevada on Monday to fly back to Washington and plans to visit the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) headquarters to get updates on the federal disaster response.
The federal government’s response has already become a political football, with Trump claiming during a visit to Valdosta, Ga., that Gov. Brian Kemp (R) couldn’t get in touch with Biden, though Kemp had told reporters earlier Monday that he had already spoken to the president.
The White House issued a state-of-emergency declaration for Georgia, at Kemp’s request, shortly before making landfall.
“He has been calling the president, but has not been able to get him,” Trump said of Kemp during a press conference.
But that claim was knocked down by Kemp, who said he spoke to Biden on Sunday evening. The president asked him, “Hey, what do you need?” Kemp said.
Looming over the political jockeying are the memories of the Bush administration’s botched response to Katrina, which was epitomized by the president’s tin-eared praise of then-FEMA Director Michael D. Brown amid a disorganized federal relief effort.
“What really hurt George Bush in 2005 as we all remember can be put down to one phrase: ‘Heck of a job, Brownie,’” said Steven Greene, a political science professor at North Carolina State University, which is not in the part of the state that was significantly hit.
“I’m not even sure how bad or not-bad the government response was, but we very quickly developed a narrative that the Bush administration had bungled it,” he said.
“They want to not screw up. They want to show they are taking this sufficiently seriously and avoid any ‘Good job, Brownie’ moments,” Greene said of Biden and Harris.
Before Bush suffered the political fallout from Katrina that hung over his second term, his father, President George H.W. Bush, was harshly criticized for responding too slowly to Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm, which slammed into Florida in August of 1992.
Now, Republicans are looking to put Biden and Harris on the defensive, questioning their minute-by-minute movements over the weekend.
“Democrats invented hurricane politics and now Democrats might get burned by it. You’ve got millions without power, you’ve got tens of thousands who’ve lost everything. On the ground, that’s certainly going to weigh on the election results, particularly when you’re talking about Georgia, North Carolina that will be decided by tens of thousands of votes,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist and veteran of presidential campaigns.
Political experts and strategists note that most of government response will be handled by the governors: two Republicans and one Democrat….
And the good news for Biden and Harris is that all three of them are experienced hands: North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), who was on the shortlist to be Harris’s running mate; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who challenged Trump for the GOP nomination; and Kemp, whom some Republicans wanted to run for president.
All three leaders have been on top of the federal response and in close coordination with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who’s on the ground in North Carolina.
On a more granular level, strategists are fretting over how the displacement of thousands of voters — both in the Republican-dominated areas of Western Florida, the Florida panhandle and rural Western North Carolina, as well as the Democratic-leaning North Carolina towns of Asheville and Boone in North Carolina — will impact voter turnout.
Christopher Dean, a North Carolina-based political consultant, noted that in-person early voting in his state begins Oct. 17.
“It’s all about turnout and how this is going to affect turnout,” he said, pointing out there are many Democratic voters in Asheville and Boone, the home of Appalachian State University. But he pointed out that surrounding rural areas are strongly Republican.
“Gov. Cooper has done an excellent job of staying on top of it,” he said. “Cooper’s office is always in local news, always talking more, so they’re breaking through more than the federal government.”
On Monday, Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R), who’s in a tough race with former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D), went on offense by demanding Democrats reconvene the Senate to pass disaster relief.
He said Congress should act as soon as FEMA and the Small Business Administration tally up how much federal disaster relief is needed in Florida and other ravaged communities.
“I am today urging Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to immediately reconvene the U.S. Senate when those assessments are completed so that we can pass the clean supplemental disaster funding bill and other disaster relief legislation,” he said.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee announced last week it would launch a multimillion-dollar TV advertising campaign in Florida in hopes of defeating Scott in a race where abortion politics are looming prominently. Democrats increasingly think that beating Scott in Florida or Sen. Ted Cruz (R) in Texas may be the key to keeping their Senate majority given the tough road to reelection faced by Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D).
Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) responded later in the day by calling for emergency assistance for farmers and ranchers throughout the Southeast.
“I’m focused on ensuring that these farmers and ranchers get the emergency assistance they need to get back on their feet as soon as possible,” she said in a statement.
Update: Still no power here personally, but people have been getting power back slowly but surely. They tried to claim they restored power to us earlier, but it's still out, so I'm hopeful that they were close, and will get it done by the end of the evening like they were predicting.
At the very least, there's enough up and running to make things easier. Restaurants and stores with power are open, sites have been supplying ice, food, and even charging stations to people since the start of the weekend. Again, despite the annoyance, we are much better off than some other places are.