Late September and early October of 2024 gave many parts of the United States a great shake, as two massive hurricanes pummeled into the Southeastern coast of the country. Millions of people were left without power, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage had been done, and many thousands of people were left with their homes and neighborhoods flooded or at worst, utterly destroyed.
These hurricanes are pretty much guaranteed to go down in the history books as two massive disastrous and costly hurricanes, as estimates are out now, stating that Hurricane Helene may have caused up to 47 billion dollars in property damage (CNN), and Hurricane Milton is also likely to be a costly one.
Hurricane Helene made landfall on the western coast of Florida as a category 4 hurricane on Thursday, September 26, 2024. As of October 11, according to USA Today the Death toll has surpassed 300 as rescue efforts continue. Helene unleashed utter devastation across the Southeast, This hurricane swept away homes, flooded towns, and destroyed bridges and roads all over the southeastern United States.
The category 4 hurricane caused damages in the states of Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia. Notably, Hurricane Helene unexpectedly devastated the Western corner of North Carolina. The town of Asheville and the communities around it suffered massive damage as the Appalachian mountains provided ample conditions for mudslides and landslides following the massive hurricane.
Moreover, flooding has absolutely devastated the rural North Carolinian community. According to the Northeastern Global News, “In the Asheville region, floods and mudslides closed hundreds of roads, damaged the water system, shut down cell service, isolated whole communities, and killed at least 35 people in Buncombe County alone. It created what [Northeastern Professor, Auroop Ganguly] calls a ‘textbook case’ of cascading failures to critical infrastructure.” Hurricane Helene is the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
Merely days after Hurricane Helene, a second, category 5 hurricane began brewing in the Gulf of Mexico; Hurricane Milton. Thankfully, it had weakened to a category 3 when it slammed into a nearly identical position as Hurricane Helene in Florida. Nonetheless, Hurricane Milton has proven to be an also devastatingly strong hurricane, as CBS states that the “Monstrous hurricanes Helene and Milton caused so much complex havoc that damages are still being added up, but government and private experts say they will likely join the infamous ranks of Katrina, Sandy and Harvey as super costly $50-billion-plus killers.”
Hurricane Milton claimed the lives of over a dozen deaths, left millions of Floridians without power, likely caused billions of dollars worth of damage, and knocked back down the already slammed state of Florida. Milton would also notably, “[flatten] trees and power lines across the state and led to flooding and tornadoes as far as 100 miles inland.” according to Newsweek. Thankfully, the hurricane did not continue into the rest of the mainland U.S. as it went through Florida into the Atlantic Ocean northbound, dissipating around the island of Bermuda.
Devastatingly, many of the damages from Hurricane Helene, and an unknown amount from Milton were uninsured, with CBS estimating that a whopping 95% or more of damages caused by Helene specifically were not insured, “putting victims in a deeper financial hole.”
Controversially, the United States government’s, Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, has faced scrutiny for its support of victims of these two hurricanes, especially with North Carolinians in the Asheville area following Hurricane Helene. Newsweek states that FEMA has, “federal assistance for Hurricane Helene victims had surpassed $344 million, split across Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia,” as of October 10, 2024. FEMA’s figures on Hurricane Milton are not yet known but are expected to rapidly increase.
So where is the controversy? The controversy is where else the federal government and FEMA spend their taxpayer-funded money. Since February 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States Federal Government has given billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine to fund its war effort. According to a document released by the Congressional Research entitled, “U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine”, “the United States has provided more than $52 billion in security assistance to support “Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself against Russia’s aggression, secure its borders, and improve interoperability with NATO,” according to the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense.”
Not to mention the billions more dollars spent to supply Ukraine with aid, as 46th United States President Joe Biden signed a “$95 billion aid package that included $481 million in supplemental funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement. According to the bill, the agency [intends] to use these funds to provide resettlement assistance to Ukrainians who arrived in the United States after September 30, 2023, and through the rest of the fiscal year, as well as refugees from other regions.” (Newsweek).
Secondly, according to the United States Agency for International Development, on June 11, 2024, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, announced “$404 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and the region” following the Israeli invasion of Gaza after the atrocious attack on October 7, 2023. This was followed by an additional nearly “$336 million” dollars worth of USAID humanitarian assistance sent to “support Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank” on September 30, 2024 (Newsweek). With the amount of money being spent on Ukraine, Israel, and even Palestine, many Americans are becoming frustrated.
With billions upon billions of dollars being sent to these foreign regions of the globe many are questioning the spending of the Federal government, particularly with FEMA. According to the official website of FEMA, “disaster assistance is generated from federal tax dollars.”
Recently, President Donald Trump has accused FEMA of not spending enough money on the damages from the hurricanes and is instead using all their money on illegal immigration. Other skeptics have also begun to wonder if the government is not using the tax dollars of Americans wisely, instead spending it on foreign wars and the problem at our Southern border. FEMA has publicly stated that “this is false” elaborating, “No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance are funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.”
With all of these in mind, with the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Israel-Iranian Proxy War with Hamas and Hezbollah, and the millions of illegal immigrants in the United States getting cumulatively tens of billions of dollars utterly dwarfs the amount being spent on American citizens (who pay for FEMA) who are suffering from the devastating aftermath of hurricanes Helene and Milton. Hence, many Americans are beginning to question how wisely the tax-payer-funded money of the United States Federal Government is being spent especially after the two historic hurricanes that have slammed the Southeastern coast of the United States.
Thoughts and prayers for those affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Photo courtesy of the AP News, Inside Climate News, U.S. Army, Knoxville News Sentinel, the New York Times, and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
