Storm response stretched thin

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Next up, recovering from two storms.

SOUND: [RECOVERY EFFORTS]

Floridians continue picking up the pieces this week after its second hurricane in as many weeks.

Following Helene, Hurricane Milton hit Florida on Wednesday night as a category three and killed at least 23. Power’s still out for some 400-thousand.

EICHER: Ahead of the most recent storm, aid groups and government officials stationed crews just outside the projected path. Some have been on the job since Helene hit three weeks ago.

REICHARD: WORLD’s Mary Muncy on the stresses on the helpers.

REED ADCOCK: We took a beating.

MARY MUNCY: Reed Adcock leads a storm response company. He coordinates bringing extra linemen into disaster areas.

ADCOCK: And when I drive around here, I see 100 year old oaks laying on their side on cars.

He lives about ten miles north of where Milton’s eye cut through Florida.

ADCOCK: It's amazing how much tree damage has been done in this part.

Adcock’s crews take a tiered priority approach. They start with getting power and water to emergency services and the most populated areas, then they move slowly outward.

Some of Adcock’s linemen have been on the job since Hurricane Helene hit three weeks ago.

ADCOCK: We literally had folks driving from Florida to Georgia, then to South Carolina or North Carolina, only to turn around from North Carolina and drive back to Florida to do the next storm.

He says two major storms back to back is rare… and they’re pulling from deep in their reserves. When a storm is coming, they usually call linemen closest to it first.

ADCOCK: On this storm, we had folks that came out of Canada.

And linemen aren’t the only ones working their way up and down the east coast.

Disaster relief organizations all over the country converged on Florida before Hurricane Helene hit, only to realize they needed to send teams further north too.

And now, they’re calling some of those teams back down to Florida.

AIMEE FRESTON: We're currently in Tennessee and we're also in North Carolina, those two locations for Hurricane Helene, and then now we're providing support to Florida for Hurricane Milton.

Aimee Freston works in communications for Texans on Mission—a Christian non-profit relief organization.

FRESTON: I was in Tennessee just a few days ago, and we had some people packing up on Wednesday night to head out to Florida on Thursday morning.

Right now, she says the needs are pretty different in each state so they aren’t spread too thin, but this has been a busy year.

In August, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, had to stop funding everything except life-saving operations.

Then, right before Helene hit, Congress passed a resolution allowing FEMA to borrow money from next year's budget, giving them access to about 20 billion dollars starting October 1.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell held a press conference before Milton hit.

DEANNE CRISWELL: I think it was 11 billion dollars was in there as of yesterday morning.

Criswell had planned to ask Congress for more funding in December or January.

CRISWELL: But I’m going to have to evaluate how quickly we’re burning the remaining dollars within the disaster relief fund to see if I’m going to have to go back in to ask for additional funding.

FEMA spent part of the money on helping states continue to recover from disasters like wildfires in California and tornadoes in Texas earlier this year. They’ve spent the rest on Hurricane Helene and at that point, preparations for Milton.

Some lawmakers have criticized the agency for its response to Helene in North Carolina… where many remain without power and water. And they’re questioning the agency’s efficiency.

BROCK LONG: Disaster response to recovery is a team sport.

Former FEMA administrator Brock Long told WORLD’s Addie Offereins that FEMA is just one player in a large-scale response.

LONG: FEMA is not going to be able to make someone who has lost their home and uninsured, they're not going to be able to make them whole. They only have the ability to render support that really kickstart recovery.

Instead, Long says FEMA relies on non-profits to fill some of the gaps in helping victims.

Right now, FEMA keeps having to ask for money for its Disaster Relief Fund. Long says the fund needs to be reassessed… to understand how much money the agency actually needs.

LONG: But here's the other thing I'll say: bigger FEMA is not necessarily going to be the single greatest thing that stops us from having these big disasters.

Instead, he says it’s going to be increasing community resilience. Things like better building code enforcement, having the right insurance, and people being more personally prepared for unexpected disasters.

LONG: We've got to get, you know, the you know, citizens in this country to become part of the solution, and not just the disaster victim that we're having to support when things go wrong.

But in the meantime, people like Ethan Forhetz with Convoy of Hope will continue to bring aid. He talked to me from an airport as he headed from distributing aid in North Carolina, to Florida right before Hurricane Milton hit.

ETHAN FORHETZ: We've been working in six states since Hurricane Helene. The big part now is North Carolina, which is still just reeling after the flooding that took place there.

They deliver truckloads of food, water, and cleaning supplies. He says the last time they had so many people and resources deployed was in 2017 when several large hurricanes hit close together.

FORHETZ: The Bible says we don't grow weary in well doing.

He says many of the volunteers are tired, but there’s a difference between being tired and being weary.

FORHETZ: We go to bed tired at night after a distribution that's eight or nine hours long, but we don't grow to go to bed weary, we go to bed refreshed in our soul, because we know we're doing the Lord's work.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

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