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The Biden-Harris administration’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has made the shocking admission that the agency only has 8 percent of front-line staff available to deal with Hurricane Milton.
During the agency’s daily operations briefing, FEMA revealed it is down by over 90 percent of front-line staff for deployment amid preparations for the second major hurricane to hit the Southeast this month.
On Wednesday, FEMA released a daily briefing revealing the agency had only 8%, or 1,115, FEMA staff members currently available for Hurricane Milton.
The monster hurricane, expected to be the biggest storm on record, is due to hit Florida within hours.
This number represents a significant drop in availability from a year prior.
An operations briefing from late September 2023 showed the agency had 20% of the same staff available for deployment.
In a statement, a FEMA spokesperson indicated that the availability numbers released by the agency are only in reference to the cadre of staffers.
Those staff members are part of FEMA’s incident management core capacity.
They are the first line of FEMA staffers to deploy in any disaster.
Meanwhile, the FEMA spokesperson pointed out the agency has a total workforce of 22,000 staffers it can tap.
FEMA also has access to resources from other agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security.
The fear of front-line FEMA staffing comes amid other concerns about FEMA’s response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
It comes amid allegations the agency spent its money on housing for illegal aliens and is blocking private relief distributors from entering areas in North Carolina impacted by Helene.
In May 2023, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report indicating that, as of the start of Fiscal Year 2022, FEMA was understaffed by 35%.
The GAO found that FEMA had an overall staffing gap of approximately 6,200 employees.
According to the GAO, FEMA officials blamed the shortage on “responsibilities due to COVID-19 and managing the rising disaster activity during the year, which increased burnout and employee attrition.”
After Hurricane Helene’s destructive and deadly sweep across the south, FEMA has been under high pressure to deliver aid to those in need.