‘We Are Dealing with Global Warming Here’
Climate-driven events stretching the abilities of FEMA and other agencies
Whether it's the devastating wildfire on Maui, or more recently, Hurricane Idalia in the Southeast, or other extremely strong weather-driven events across the country, government is increasingly being taxed by the effects of global climate change, according to a variety of public officials including President Biden.
Political leaders at every level are dealing with the effects of climate change, meaning that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other arms of government need the resources to deal with the growing problem of emergency response, officials said.
Idalia this week ripped through Florida as a major hurricane before it headed to Georgia and South Carolina as a weakened, but still powerful, tropical storm.
Last month a series of wildfires broke out in the state of Hawaii, predominantly on the island of Maui. The wind-driven fires prompted evacuations, caused widespread damage, killing at least 115 people and leaving 388 others missing.
FEMA and other government agencies have been stepping in to respond but find themselves increasingly stretched for resources to meet the growing need.
President Biden Thursday visited FEMA headquarters where he praised the work by staff meeting the growing challenge.
“We are not this engaged this often, but this last couple years, with climate change and really kicking in, you guys are going 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. And it seems to just keep piling up,” the president said.
As a result of the impact of climate change, the White House is asking Congress for an additional $4 billion in emergency funding to help cover the costs of recent natural disasters in Hawaii, Florida and other parts of the country.
Last month, the White House told Congress the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund needed $12 billion. But on Friday, the White House said that wasn't going to be enough, and increased the request to a total of $16 billion, citing the fires on Maui and in Louisiana, flooding in Vermont and Idalia slamming into Florida.
“There are still some deniers out there in terms of whether or not climate change had anything to do with any of this, and we are going to need a whole hell of a lot more money to deal with emergency appropriations, to deal with all you're taking care of,” Biden said at FEMA headquarters.
Storms like Idalia are getting stronger and more severe, according to FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.
“You know, I’m not going to attribute the cause of the storm, but what I can say is that we are seeing an increase in the number of severe weather events,” she said.
And what we saw with this storm, as we have seen with several of our hurricanes over the last few years, is that they are intensifying more rapidly due to the elevated heat of the water temperature in the Gulf, or in the Pacific, or whether it’s in the Atlantic, these storms are intensifying so fast, that our local emergency management officials have less time to — to warn and evacuate and get people to safety. This is something that we have to take into consideration as we build our preparedness plans, as our local communities build their preparedness plans, and how they’re going to communicate and prepare their communities for the types of storms that they’re going to face in the future.”
The issue is not only federal as Hawaii Gov Josh Green (D) must contend with anger and investigations into a response that left the historical town of Lahaina essentially destroyed.
“I think that at the end of the day, we all have to acknowledge that this is a global problem, it was a very, very hot, dry, terrible storm. We are dealing with global warming here,” Green said. “We had six total fire emergencies from 1953 to 2003 and then we had six in the first two weeks of this month.
“So, it’s a disaster waiting to happen because it’s so hot, but we’ll get to the bottom of actual responsibility, and that will contribute to how we try to bring kind of financial closure to people for this tragedy,” he added.
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