Disaster reliefFEMA chief: agency to recover $1 billion for disaster relief fund
Testifying before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee last week, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator Craig Fugate said the agency expects to recover about $1 billion from its disaster relief projects this fiscal year
Testifying before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee last week, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator Craig Fugate said the agency expects to recover about $1 billion from its disaster relief projects this fiscal year.
Using those additional funds, Fugate said, “we can continue paying for the more recent disasters.”
In September, the federal disaster relief fund was nearly depleted and as Congress debated on whether to provide more funds, FEMA hastily de-obligated funds from completed disaster recovery efforts in an effort to maintain solvency.
According to Fugate, FEMA managed to recover more than $2 billion from fiscal year 2012.
Fugate also reported on FEMA’s efforts to incorporate emerging technologies to bolster disaster response capabilities. In particular FEMA was working with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency to gather information “before people actually get on the ground,” Fugate said.
In addition, Fugate said FEMA was working to couple social media tools with geospatial information to better communicate with disaster victims and collect intelligence.
