Mayorkas Warns of Funding Shortfall for Rest of Hurricane Season

The homeland security secretary said FEMA, which is dealing with the destruction from Hurricane Helene, would need more money to respond to another major storm.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency does not have enough funding to ride out the remainder of the hurricane season, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, said on Wednesday.

The announcement comes as FEMA is conducting search-and rescue-operations in remote sections of Appalachia six days after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida and moved north, causing widespread destruction and the deaths of at least 183 people across six states. President Biden has in recent days approved major-disaster declarations for the states affected by the storm.

“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mr. Mayorkas told reporters on Wednesday while en route to meet with officials in South Carolina. “We are expecting another hurricane hitting — we do not have the funds, FEMA does not have the funds, to make it through the season.”

On Monday, President Biden suggested he might need to summon lawmakers back to Washington to approve extra funding for disaster relief, after a stopgap bill for funding the government that passed last week did not provide the agency enough money to deal with multiple disasters.

And on Tuesday, a bipartisan group of 12 senators from the states affected by Helene urged colleagues in a letter to be prepared to return from recess and send the agency more funding.

“Although the true level of devastation is still unfolding, it is clear that Congress must act to meet the unmet needs in our states and address the scope and scale of destruction experienced by our constituents,” the letter said. “This may even require Congress to come back in October to ensure we have enough time to enact legislation before the end of this calendar year.”

But on Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson said that although congressional leaders anticipated that an emergency spending package would be necessary at some point, lawmakers would not return to Washington before the November election to consider and pass one.

“We wouldn’t even conceivably have the request ready before we get back in November,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview, noting that it would take time to assess the damage and calculate the costs of recovery and rebuilding. “There’s no necessity for Congress to come back.”

While the stopgap bill Mr. Biden signed into law last week contained an additional $16 billion for FEMA, preliminary assessments of the damage from Moody’s and others predict a cleanup effort that could cost tens of billions.

As Mr. Biden traveled to South Carolina on Wednesday to extend his support, Mr. Mayorkas described a sprawling response that included airdrops of food and other aid, and the deployment of more than 6,000 members of the National Guard in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

“We are meeting the moment, but that doesn’t speak about the future and the fact, as I mentioned earlier, that these extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity,” Mr. Mayorkas said. “We have to be funded for the sake of the American people — this is not a political issue.”

Annie Karni contributed reporting.