When the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season ends on Nov. 30, it will go down in history as one of the most devastating in United States history. Of the year’s four major hurricanes, two stand out in particular: Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. Both of these hit the mainland U.S. within a week and a half of each other, both caused catastrophic damage worth tens of billions of dollars, and both impacted millions, if not tens of millions, of Americans.
Hurricane Helene, the first of the two storms, made U.S. landfall on Sept. 26 and lasted until Sept. 29. Helene sustained wind speeds of over 140 mph, making it a Category 4 hurricane (wind speeds of 130 mph are needed to be Category 4). Helene has caused over 220 deaths in six states as of Oct. 7, making it the fourth deadliest hurricane to have touched U.S. soil since 1950. Hundreds of people are still missing in North Carolina alone. The heavy toll that Helene has had on the state has led some to dub it “North Carolina’s own Katrina,” in reference to the cataclysmic 2005 hurricane.
Hurricane Milton hit U.S. soil just 13 days later, from Oct. 9 to Oct. 12. Milton struck Florida dead-on, becoming the third hurricane this year to hit the state (after Helene in September and Hurricane Debby in August). Milton had sustained wind speeds of over 180 mph and was Category 5 (which requires winds over 157 mph) at its most intense point before dropping to a still-horrific Category 3 after making landfall. Milton was so intense that if Category 6 were to exist, the storm would be on the edge of achieving it.
The exact number of deaths attributed to Milton is not yet known, as many victims are still being discovered. As of Oct. 18, though, over 30 deaths have been reported. A report from CBS News, also on Oct. 18, stated that the hurricanes combined had killed at least 268 people. Helene caused 20 feet of storm surge (quick-moving floods brought about by a storm) in some areas, and both hurricanes led to widespread flooding.
Hurricane Ian, which hit Florida just two years ago in 2022, cost $113 billion and was, ironically, considered a one in 20 year disaster. It killed 161 people, 60 percent of Helene and Milton’s combined death toll. In addition to being some of the deadliest hurricanes, the two are also some of the costliest: on the lower end, the hurricanes are estimated to have cost around $50 billion each. Even more devastating is that much of the damage caused by the 2024 duo was not insured (over 95 percent for Helene’s damages), making it much harder for victims to recover from the storms.
Adam Smith, an economist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Center for Environmental Information, said storms that cause over $50 billion in direct losses are “truly historic events.” There have only been eight storms to cross that mark so far, and Smith says it is very likely that Helene and Milton will join that list once their damage estimates are finalized.
On top of direct damages, Milton has caused around 30 different tornadoes in Florida and has triggered over 125 tornado warnings. These tornadoes have caused even further death and destruction. Usually, tornadoes caused by hurricanes are on the weaker side: between 1995 and 2023, only five hurricanes produced from tropical storms caused EF-3 tornadoes, on a scale of EF-1 at the lowest to EF-5 at the highest. In 2024, though, four out of the five hurricanes that made US landfall have caused EF-3 tornadoes and higher, and Milton has caused the most of those four. Research has suggested that climate change has had an impact on why Milton caused so many tornadoes of such magnitude, but this is unconfirmed.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the part of the government responsible for nationwide recovery and rescue efforts, and thus, it has been responding to the Helene-Milton crisis. A budget bill passed by Congress on Sept. 25 (the day before Helene hit) granted a $20 billion budget for FEMA to use over the next fiscal year, which is made up of the final months of 2024 and most of 2025. While this undoubtedly is helpful for the agency’s hurricane recovery efforts, many people wonder whether it will be enough.
That $20 billion budget is for all of FEMA’s operations, not just for its Helene-Milton recovery efforts. In fact, the agency spent $9 billion of its allocated $20 billion in just one week, effectively halving its budget going forward. Much of that $9 billion was spent reimbursing state governments for their efforts to fight previous hurricanes. These three facts mean that the agency has to work with an even more limited budget for Helene and Milton, and it also means that FEMA is practically guaranteed to run out of money before the end of the fiscal year.
The Sept. 25 bill also has what some people may feel is a glaring issue: while it did set the budget for FEMA, the bill did not grant money to other disaster recovery programs, such as the Small Business Association (SBA)’s disaster loan program or the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s disaster block grant program. After the Sept. 25 bill passed, Congress went into a six-week pre-election recess, which means it will not be in session to draft new bills to help fund disaster relief. President Joe Biden has urged Congress to come out of recess early to work on legislation that funds FEMA and the SBA, but Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-LA, 4th district) has refused to bring the House back into session.
Speaker Johnson has said that Congress will be in session again “immediately after the [presidential] election,” but there’s a problem with that: it would mean Congress is out of session until after Nov. 5. This means that even if Congress does pass an aid bill, it will have been delayed until long past a month after the hurricanes first hit. Waiting that long for aid to be funded makes it likely that there will be victims who could have been saved if aid had been available sooner.
Speaker Johnson, along with several fellow Republican representatives, believes that the $20 billion allocated to FEMA is enough funding. However, other members of Congress—and members of the wider populace—seem to disagree. Speaker Johnson has been implored by many to change his mind and bring the House back into session. In one such example, Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL, 13th district) said on the social media platform X, “If Congress goes into a special session we can get [a recovery bill] passed immediately. This needs to happen. @SpeakerJohnson call us back.”
There have been efforts to bring the Senate out of recess as well. A group of senators from both the Republican and Democratic parties has signed a letter to petition Senate leaders to bring the upper congressional chamber back into session. But despite these attempts, it does not seem likely that the recess will end before November unless President Biden intervenes to force Congress to re-assemble early. If he doesn’t step in, America will just have to hope that recovery efforts succeed with their current levels of funding.
