What does FEMA actually do? A former administrator explains.

FEMA is probably the most talked about institution every time there’s a natural disaster, and this time’s no different.

There’s almost too much news to choose from. To address Hurricanes Helene and Milton, FEMA has spent half of its disaster fund just days into its fiscal year. Members of the Florida delegation are agitating for a return to Washington to replenish the money. And it’s a target ahead of the election, with former President Donald Trump slamming the agency with falsehoods while the White House rushes in to do damage control .

One thing that’s clear is that a lot of people misunderstand the agency’s role in a natural disaster. To help explain it all, POLITICO turned to Craig Fugate, who not only used to run Florida’s emergency division but also led FEMA.

Here’s the bottom line: Florida’s state government is in charge of hurricane recovery, which it coordinates alongside local officials, as Gov. Ron DeSantis has been reiterating at numerous TV news appearances. And FEMA is there to help — but so are several other federal agencies.

“There are a lot of programs,” Fugate said. “And I think the tendency is we use ‘FEMA’ as a verb to talk about disaster response in federal assistance, but you really need to go through the federal catalog.”

Here’s a quick snapshot of how the agency works after a storm. FEMA deploys people to be on the ground to help states with efforts such as search-and-rescue or getting power running. With the last two storms in particular, Florida asked for a waiver to quicken debris removal.

FEMA also pays for disaster survivors to stay at hotels. And it gives grants to low-income people who don’t have property or flood insurance to help pay for emergency home repairs. The initial $750 people received from FEMA in the wake of Helene’s Appalachia destruction was intended to speed up getting cash into people’s hands for basic necessities, given that officials had trouble getting to the treacherous area quickly, Fugate explained. Once on the ground, FEMA workers are able to help people sign up for the various financial assistance programs they qualify for, but the bulk of the immediate response disaster victims see comes from local officials.

FEMA, however, isn’t the only agency giving financial assistance to victims of natural disasters. The Small Business Administration offers low-interest disaster loans to homeowners with no property insurance, for people who have the means to pay them back.

It’s this SBA fund that has President Joe Biden concerned , he told reporters on Thursday when he argued for Congress to come back to Washington early. “The Congress should be coming back and moving on emergency needs immediately, and they're going to have to come back after the election as well,” Biden said, predicting building would take a long time and “several billion dollars.”

As for FEMA, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday that the agency had enough funds for immediate needs, but wanted Congress to allocate more after they return.

For Florida, one of the biggest concerns Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has been talking about comes from another pot of money, through the Department of Agriculture. That financial assistance goes to farmers, ranchers and rural communities hit by hurricanes. Scott recently asked the agency to consider approving the money as block grants, so that the state could have flexibility on how to spend the money, and reiterated the request to Biden when they met following Helene and again on Thursday.

A few other agencies are also part of hurricane recovery, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which gives states flexible grants toward rebuilding affordable housing. And the Department of Transportation has an emergency fund to help pay for repairs to federal highways and bridges that run through states.

Members of Florida’s congressional delegation have asked House Speaker Mike Johnson to reconvene lawmakers as soon as possible to help replenish some of the funding, but the speaker reiterated on Thursday that it wasn’t going to happen until after the election. Florida is just beginning to assess the damage and how much it’ll cost.

Either way, Fugate pointed out that a lot of different programs would need to be evaluated in the days, weeks and months ahead to figure out if the federal government had enough money.

“FEMA was not designed to make states whole after disasters,” he said. “There's a lot of other federal programs that have authority.”

This story first appeared in Florida Playbook. Sign up today to get the top news from the Sunshine State delivered to your inbox every weekday.