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A once in 200-years storm dumped 11 inches of rain over four hours on the central Massachusetts town of Leominster in September, washing away culverts, creating a sinkhole that swallowed cars at a dealership and flooding the city council chambers with sewage.<\/p>\n
Damages to public infrastructure in Leominster exceeded $24 million, but the federal government denied a request for reimbursement to fix everything from dams to sanitation mains, and rejected Governor Maura Healey\u2019s bid for a major disaster declaration for impacted counties in the center of her state. And last month, Healey said the US Federal Emergency Management Agency turned down her appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe perception of most is FEMA is there when you get into large scale events \u2014 they are going to help you,\u201d said Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella, who is now weighing how to pay for both a new elementary school that was planned before storms hit and the damage they caused. \u201cPractice self reliance. If you are waiting for the federal government to help, lower those expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leominster joins a growing roster of municipalities that FEMA has denied aid to as it copes with natural disasters that are increasing in frequency, strength and costs. Just this month, Hurricane Beryl became the earliest-forming Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record. The agency is stretched thin with a record number of billion-dollar catastrophes and a mission that\u2019s expanded to cover Covid-19 and the migrant care crisis. And it\u2019s captive to a hyper-partisan federal budget process that risks letting its primary relief fund run dry for a second year in row.<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden declared 71 major disasters last year, the most since the start of the pandemic. At the same time, FEMA also denied 14 requests, the most since 2016. FEMA said the damage in Leominster was \u201cnot of such severity and magnitude as to warrant the designation of Public Assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Already this year, the US has been hit by 15 weather and climate disasters each costing at least\u00a0$1 billion<\/a>, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There were a record 28 such billion-dollar storms last year.<\/p>\n The number of disasters FEMA actively managed during the height of the last hurricane season more than doubled to 71 from 2016, according to the Government Accountability Office. After 2017, its daily deployment jumped to about 7,100 workers from about 3,300 before then, the\u00a0GAO said<\/a>. And FEMA has been about 6,000 workers short of staffing goals, according to most recent estimates.<\/p>\n FEMA\u2019s Disaster Relief Fund could be depleted by mid August without additional money from Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told the Associated Press last month. The fund faces a more than $6 billion deficit without supplemental\u00a0appropriations<\/a>, according to its most recent monthly\u00a0report<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last year, the Disaster Relief Fund was forced to\u00a0halt<\/a>\u00a0payments for about a month \u2013 the first time it had to do so since 2017 \u2014 for thousands of projects not considered immediate as it was running out of money. For example, funding was\u00a0delayed<\/a>\u00a0for projects related to past hurricanes and wildfires.<\/p>\n \u201cIf FEMA funding doesn\u2019t grow at the same rate of disasters, something is going to give,\u201d said Sarah Sullivant, a managing director at S&P Global Ratings. \u201cThese disasters are getting more costly. It will require more funding for FEMA. If that funding is not forthcoming, we are talking about long-term state and local governments being on the hook for more.\u201d<\/p>\n FEMA said it\u2019s working with the administration and Congress to ensure sufficient funding is available. If that doesn\u2019t come through, the agency will ensure resources are available to support ongoing lifesaving and life sustaining activities.<\/p>\n \u201cMost people may not realize FEMA is managing 500 open disaster declarations going back to sometimes 20 years to Hurricane Katrina,\u201d Chris Currie, director of the homeland security and justice team for the GAO, said during a March Congressional hearing. \u201cWhile FEMA is always going to prioritize response efforts and lifesaving efforts, the impact that this has is really on the long tail and recovery projects that FEMA manages.\u201d<\/p>\n Although federal aid is often marshaled to help communities in the aftermath of major disasters and immediate live-saving aid isn\u2019t in doubt, the surging financial toll is spurring more and more questions about whether FEMA can keep up.\u00a0<\/p>\n