Debris seen in Asheville, North Carolina following Hurricane Helene on September 30

Mike Stewart/AP

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Mike Stewart/AP

Rumors, misinformation and lies about the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene in the southeastern United States have been widespread since the storm made landfall, particularly related to funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The claims are so widespread that FEMA has set up one Answer page to debunk many falsehoods about how disaster financing works and the agency’s response.

As of Sunday, FEMA said it had provided more than $137 million in aid to six states in the Southeast, including 7,000 federal personnel, nearly 15 million meals, 14 million gallons of water, 157 generators and more than half a million tarps.

The agency also says more than 3,000 North Carolinians were rescued or assisted by more than 1,200 municipal search and rescue personnel, with recovery efforts supported by the National Guard and active-duty troops. North Carolina also received $100 million in federal transportation funding to rebuild roads and bridges damaged by the storm.

With less than a month to go before Election Day, Republicans, particularly former President Donald Trump, have sought to use the storm as a political tool against Vice President Harris. Trump has repeatedly attacked Harris and President Biden for “doing a poor job” of dealing with the storm’s aftermath without details, instead using misleading math to complain about immigration and foreign aid.

“They’re offering them $750 for people whose homes were washed away,” Trump said Saturday at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “And yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of.” You offer them $750. They were destroyed. These people were destroyed.”

The $750 that Trump is referring to is referred to as such Help if urgently needed, an initial direct relief payment intended to cover emergency supplies such as food, water, baby formula and other essentials. The urgent needs assistance is one of many changes to FEMA’s individual assistance programs that went into effect earlier this year, along with relocation assistance to address immediate housing needs while residents consider long-term options. FEMA assistance also covers storm-related damage to homes and personal property.

Vice President Harris pushed back against Trump’s claims on Monday.

“The former president is spreading a lot of misinformation and disinformation about what is available to Helene survivors in particular,” Harris said, urging people to apply for help. “It’s extraordinarily irresponsible: it’s about him, not you. And the reality is that FEMA has so many resources available to people who desperately need them,” she said.

Misinformation is “extremely damaging” to disaster relief efforts, said Keith Turi, acting deputy administrator for response and recovery at FEMA. “It reduces the likelihood that survivors will come to FEMA with a trusted way to register for assistance,” Turi told reporters on a call Monday afternoon. “It is important that we have close, trusting relationships with all our partners and the public and that misinformation directly affects our ability to help people. This is unfortunate because these people have been through extremely traumatic times.”

Is FEMA running out of money?

Another popular refrain that has gained traction on the right in recent days is the claim that FEMA has no money for hurricane relief because money is being spent on migrants, which is not true.

The money used after Helene and other major disasters is not part of FEMA’s operating budget but comes from the disaster relief fund appropriated by Congress.

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reportedly said the agency “does not have the resources to weather the remainder of hurricane season.”

FEMA is required to publish monthly status reports on the DRF, and before the end of the fiscal year the agency was required to implement them “Immediate needs financing” This will suspend some Agency expenditures not tied to life-saving and life-sustaining measures when DRF needs may exceed the remaining balance.

The most Current report Data running through August showed a projected deficit through the end of September – and that was before Helene arrived in the country.

The federal government’s fiscal year begins in October, and a stopgap measure approved by lawmakers last month replenished the DRF to last year’s base level of $20 billion, although some of that money is reserved for ongoing recovery efforts from previous disasters and projects in the future Mitigate impacts.

In a press release Monday afternoon, the White House stated that FEMA “has sufficient resources to support both the response to Hurricane Milton and to continue to support the response to Hurricane Helene – including resources to support first responders and provide immediate assistance.” for survivors of the disaster.” “

Could FEMA’s disaster relief fund soon get more money?

The DRF is often viewed as the first port of call while FEMA and other agencies assess the damage and needs associated with a particular disaster. Once this information is compiled, the president typically sends a formal request to Congress for additional funding to provide more tailored resources and programs for a particular response.

Congress has not yet passed additional funding for other disasters earlier this year, much to the frustration of members in communities recovering from floods, fires and other major events. Even if they had approved the existing funding request, the money would not have gone to Helene aid because the storm damage occurred after Congress left Washington at the end of September.

Lawmakers could return to Washington to try to pass more aid, but they are waiting for the White House to send an updated funding request. President Biden wrote a letter to Congress last week It states that FEMA “has the resources necessary for the immediate emergency response phase.”

Biden further said an updated request is on the way.

“My administration will update Congress on efforts to assess the full resource needs related to Hurricane Helene, including long-term recovery and resiliency efforts, once these estimates are available,” he wrote.

A continuing resolution proposed in the House last month would have earmarked an additional $10 billion for the fund, but that version failed because it was tied to a controversial Republican-backed election bill that aimed to further crack down on already illegal elections of non-citizens.

Trump is using immigration attacks to make more false claims

A August report The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general argues that billions of dollars earmarked for disasters more than a decade ago could be returned to the disaster relief fund.

But the false argument from Trump and other Republicans was that the Biden administration diverted disaster funds to care for migrants.

“They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to the illegal immigrants they want to vote for them this season,” Trump said in Michigan last week.

Non-citizens cannot vote in the election and no disaster funds have been redirected. Instead, Trump and his allies are referring to the Shelter and Services Program, in which FEMA distributed hundreds of millions in grants from Customs and Border Protection to communities experiencing an influx of migrants.

This program was a separate funding source with a separate purpose that covered different years – and was not relevant to current hurricane recovery efforts.

Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday he had no plans to bring lawmakers back from the pre-election recess to address calls for additional disaster relief as Hurricane Milton strengthened as a Category 5 storm hitting the coast Florida’s closer.